Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Prophecy
A play
Karen Malpede
January 2009
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009
Barbara Hogenson
Barbara Hogenson Agency
[email protected]
212-874-8084
[email protected]
718-789-5404
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
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Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Penguin Group and the estate of Robert Fagles
for permission to use the Tiresias speech from The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles and
translated by Robert Fagles. First published in 1982 by The Viking Press, Inc. Penguin
Classics (New York: 1982). Copyright © Robert Fagles, 1982, 1984.
Characters
Sarah Golden, late fifties, smart, lively, actress and acting teacher
Jeremy Thrasher, twenty-one, an acting student
Miranda Cruz, twenties, acting student
Alan Golden, late sixties, Sarah’s husband, executive director of the Refugee
Relief Committee
Hala Jabar, twenties, and, then, in her forties, Alan’s associate; a PalestinianLebanese human rights worker
Charles Muffler, sixties, dean of the acting school where Sarah teaches
Mariam Jabar, twenties, Alan and Hala’s daughter
Lukas Brightman, nineteen, young lover from Sarah’s youth
Prophecy had its world premiere at the New End Theatre, London, September 8, 2008.
Susan Penhaligon played Sarah Golden, George Bartenieff played Alan Golden, Jos
VanTyler played Jeremy Thrasher and Lukas Brightman, Najla Said played Miranda
Cruz, Hala and Mariam Jabar, Michael Roberts played Charles Muffler. The direction
was by Ninon Jerome. The American premiere was at the Fourth Street Theater, New
York City, June 1, 2010, produced by Theater Three Collaborative in association with
New York Theater Workshop. Kathleen Chalfant played Sarah Golden, George
Bartenieff played Alan Golden, Brendan Donaldson played Jeremy Thrasher and Lukas
Brightman, Najla Said played Miranda Cruz, Hala and Mariam Jabar, Peter Francis
James played Charles Muffler. The direction was by Karen Malpede. Maxine Willi Klein
designed the set, Tony Giovannetti, the lighting, Sally Ann Parsons, costumes, Arthur
Rosen, sound and music.
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Time & Place
“Prophecy” takes place in the early fall of 2006, in New York City and in the
memories of Sarah and Alan Golden in 1969–72, and 1981–82
Staging & Set
In style, the play bridges modernist realism with something older and more classical. The
setting should be simple, beautiful and spare. Scene must follow scene seamlessly.
A back wall has two entrance ways, one to either side which serve as the parados
of the classical theater, allowing quick and easy entrances and exits. In the middle of this
wall is a bedroom alcove, inside of which is the marriage bed on a slight rake. Wall and
floor are painted to look like light stone. Furniture, painted white, and realistic props are
minimal. On stage right is a desk, with telephone and snow globe, and a desk chair.
Center stage: a wooden bench. Stage left: a small wrought iron table with two chairs.
Lighting defines location as does the actors’ relationship to the space.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
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Act One
Scene 1
[Sarah Golden, in a well-preserved middle age, is intense, wiry, in possession of a quick
often ironic, sometimes self-deprecating wit; she carries a burden whose origin even she
has forgot. Her arms are loaded with books and yellow pads. She walks quickly down
the hall, her head bent, deep in thought. Jeremy Thrasher is in his early twenties, a
preternaturally beautiful young man, tall and lean, with long hair almost to his
shoulders, at the moment held in a pony tail. He, too, has a nervous intensity about him.
He has been waiting for her outside the rehearsal room. But because she doesn’t seem to
see him, he steps aside to let her pass, defeated. She is about to go into the room, when
he calls out.]
Ms Golden!
Jeremy
(She startles and stops, turns to him.) Can we talk?
Sarah
Afterwards.
Jeremy
About a word.
Sarah
After class.
Jeremy
I’m in the first semester class.
Sarah
I know. I do remember.
Jeremy
It’s just, I never read out-loud, or even say anything. I’m performing today.
Sarah
That’s good.
Jeremy
(sticking out his hand to shake.)
It’s Jeremy.
Sarah
Jeremy.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Jeremy
Thrasher.
Sarah
Jeremy Thrasher.
[She takes his hand, they shake. They don’t let go. Obviously, something about him
captivates her.]
Jeremy
Augury.
Sarah
Jeremy Thrasher Augury.
Jeremy
That’s it. You said to look it up. You told us any word we didn’t know we had
to look it up. (Sarah takes her hand out of his.) You talked about that for a long
time in class. How we’ve got to understand what we are saying before we can
act. How we’ve “absolutely got to know the precise meaning.” I looked it up.
Look. (He fishes a precisely folded piece of paper from his jean pocket, unfolds
it, and reads): “Augury: The art of the augur.”
Sarah
Very good.
Jeremy
“An augural observance or rite.”
Sarah
Right.
Jeremy
What?
Sarah
You looked it up.
Jeremy
Yeah.
Sarah
That augurs well.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Jeremy
Sure.
Sarah
So, now, you see.
I don’t.
Jeremy
“An omen, a portent, a token.”
Sarah
Are augurs.
Jeremy
Portent!
Sarah
It’s going to happen.
Jeremy
What is?
Sarah
Whatever has been portended, or, let’s say, augured. My class, for instance.
[Sarah tries get around him to enter the room. Jeremy stands in front of her.]
Jeremy
“Foreboding, anticipation, promise, indication.”
Sarah
Augurs, each.
Jeremy
So which one is it?
Sarah
You can choose.
Jeremy
I can’t choose because I don’t know.
Sarah
Listen. Foreboding. Fore. As in be-fore. But, Bode, that has the feeling.
Jeremy
Bad?
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Good.
Jeremy
Anticipation?
Sarah
Snappy. Short. You hardly can wait—for class to start.
[She tries to move around him. Again, he stops her.]
Jeremy
Look, I can’t say it if I don’t know what it means.
Sarah
Use it in a context. Say the word out loud, surrounded by other words.
Jeremy
Go ahead.
Sarah
Fine. (Attempting to enter the room, again.)
Jeremy
In a sentence. Augury. Do it.
Sarah
Right. From my place of augury I’d say Jeremy Thrasher is likely to be a good
student who should speak up more during class.
Jeremy
Look, there were no books in our house. No one in my family ever read the
Greeks. The Greeks ran the diner at the end of the street. They went to the
wrong church. You tell me I can’t say it if I don’t know what it means. You tell
me to look it up. I look it up. Foreboding. Anticipation. Promise. Indication.
I’m confused. I’m the one who has got to act it.
Sarah
Just say the sentence in your script with the word “augury” in it when the time
comes for you to say it. I promise you, you’ll feel it. At least for right then.
You can always change your mind.
Jeremy
Great, oh, great. You had books in your house.
Sarah
We had books, but not what you’d call literature, art. We didn’t have any of that.
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Jeremy
But the Greeks?
Sarah
Not the Greeks, no, definitely not the Greeks. I joined the pagan church later in life.
Jeremy
So how did you learn to feel what augury is?
Sarah
You know what, Jeremy; it’s love. That’s all it is. Forget about not having
books. Give yourself over. The language is your lover and you are in bed
murmuring to her, or him, for that matter. Once you love, the language opens
itself up. You fall in. You start to vibrate with sense. Now, we’re both late for
class.
[Quickly, Sarah moves by him through the door. A woman student, Miranda, arrives.]
Miranda
Ready for Ms Thing and the Greeks?
Jeremy
I guess.
Miranda
Yeah, well, I’m going to rock.
Jeremy
Aint nobody rocks my balls like you, baby.
[Jeremy and Miranda kiss, passionately; he squeezes her bottom, and she swats his hand
away, playfully.]
Miranda
Just wait till you see what I do.
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Scene 2
[The rehearsal room: the floor is polished wood, the walls white, a floor to ceiling
mirror covered by black velour drapes, fills the back wall, facing out at the audience.
Alternatively, the “mirror” could be imagined to be on the wall separating audience from
action.]
Sarah
Good morning, everyone. So, who is ready to present?
Miranda
I’ll go.
Sarah
Good.
Miranda
My name is Miranda Cruz. I will be doing a choral speech from Antigone..
[Miranda goes to stage rights and steps out of her jeans. She is wearing tights. She slips
into a diaphanous shift.]
Sarah
Wonderful. Great. The chorus speaks in the voice of the people, for the polis,
city-state, for all of us.
[Miranda begins to move across the stage, silently, in some sort of a rather bad idea of a
choral dance. She’s beautiful, and knows it; she’s showing her body off. She waves her
arms. She begins to speak in a sort of singsong chant.]
Miranda
Many the wonders but nothing walks stranger than man.
This thing crosses the sea in the winter’s storm
Making his path through the waves,
And she, the great god of the earth—
Ugh…old, no, ageless
Sarah
Stop.
Miranda
Ageless she is.
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Sarah
Stop. Please. The feeling tells you where to go. If you keep flitting about,
you’ll never know what you feel. Stand still. Stop looking at yourself in the
mirror. Begin.
Miranda
(frozen in place, expressionless, flat voice.)
Many the wonders but nothing walks stranger than man
This thing
Sarah
Listen! Wonders, strange, thing. A play of opposites, people with ideas that
don’t go together, but they still have to live in one city. “Many the wonders/
but nothing walks stranger than man.” Can you feel that? Can you take that
in? Again.
Miranda
This thing crosses the sea
(she begins moving again)
Making his path through the rolling waves.
Sarah
What kind of waves? Roaring, not rolling, roaring, so stop flitting about.
Miranda
Making his path through the roaring waves.
And she, the greatest of gods, the earth—
Ageless she is, and unwearied—he wears her away
[With commitment, she restarts the elaborate and bad dance, bumping and grinding on
“he wears her away”.]
Sarah
Wait. I can’t stand it. I shouldn’t be able to stand it. Not you, I mean. It’s not
you I can’t stand. I can stand you. You’re fine. You’re doing well. As well as
you can do without seeing or feeling one single thing you are saying. You’re
alive inside. Show me: The enormity. The madness driving us. Man,
wonderful, strange, he wears Her away. The earth on which he lives. The
greatest of gods. She, ageless, unwearied, we wear her away. Why do we do
such things? Greed? Rage? Is it sorrow? The death-wish inside? It is very
strange. Please tell. What we want from the chorus is to be made to ask the
unanswerable things. Go. I’m on the edge of my seat.
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Miranda
Look, I worked hard on this. I had a stomach ache all night, I couldn’t sleep.
I’m sick.
Sarah
Right. We are both feeling ill. Rolling waves, a rough sea. But, let me tell you,
for the next class, this is where you’ve got to end up:
Antigone appears, right then, in chains. “My mind is split at this awful sight.”
Ripped, torn in half. (She rips her yellow pad in two, flings the pieces one to
each side of the stage.) There’s the tragic dilemma: Two sets of laws. Always
two choices, but what if the gods want one thing from us and the nation-state
wants something else? Next class, when your tummy ache is over, when your
blood starts to flow, will you let us know if we should murder this girl. Who’s
next?
Jeremy
I’ll go.
[Miranda gives Sarah and Jeremy furious looks, as she walks toward the door.]
Sarah
(Miranda leaves. The door slams.) Dear me. (To the class) Never mind.
Who’s next?
[He grabs the folding chair, places it upstage center.]
Jeremy
(nervously)
I’ll be doing Tiresias’ speech, also from Antigone.
[He sits in the chair. His voice trembles. Sarah leans forward, attentive, silent,
watching.]
Jeremy
As I sat on the ancient seat of augury,
In the sanctuary where every bird I know
Will hover at my hands—suddenly I heard it,
[Sarah starts writing on her yellow pad. She speaks what is inside her mind.]
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Sarah
Jeremy Thrasher grabbed me, like a hand from under the earth. I saw Lukas the
minute Jeremy Thrasher started to speak.
Jeremy
A strange voice in the wing beats, unintelligible,
Barbaric, a mad scream! Talons flashing, ripping,
They were killing each other—that much I knew—
Sarah
The night we lay on the rug after love, and started talking about the war.
[Jeremy and Sarah speak in unison. Sarah, caught in her memory, looks front.]
Jeremy
I was afraid.
I turned quickly, tested the burnt-sacrifice,
Ignited the altar at all points—
Sarah
We were more frightened than either of us knew.
We saw every night on television, flames coming
Out of the backs of children running from the napalm
Jeremy
--but no fire,
The god in the fire never blazed.
Not from those offerings… over the embers
Sarah
Whole villages burning up. Babies, charred,
In the arms of their mothers, because of our bombs,
Blood coming out of their mouths.
Jeremy
Slid a heavy ooze from the long thighbones,
Smoking, sputtering out, and the bladder
Puffed and burst—spraying gall into the air—
And the fat wrapping the bones slithered off
Sarah
Body counts. Body bags.
When he moved from under me,
When he pulled himself out,
Lukas was coated with my blood.
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Jeremy
And left them glistening white. No Fire!
The public altars and sacred hearths are fouled,
One and all, by the birds and dogs with carrion
Torn from the corpse.
Sarah
Blood of life, we said, not death.
We felt we had done something sacred
To counteract the shame in the world.
[Sarah watches Jeremy with total concentration, captivated and he gathers force,
trembling.]
Jeremy
And so the gods are deaf to our prayers, they spurn
The offerings in our hands, the flame of holy flesh.
No birds cry out an omen clear and true—
They’re gorged with the murdered victim’s blood and fat.
[Jeremy whips the chair out from under him and flings it at the mirror which shatters and
breaks. Jeremy runs from the room.]
Scene 3
[The Hallway: Jeremy’s girlfriend, Miranda, is leaning, against the wall. Jeremy enters,
eerily calm, in a dissociated state; he is split off from what he’s just done.]
Miranda
What have you got to say for yourself?
Jeremy
Nothing much.
Miranda
You sit there waving your hand. You just want to perform.
Jeremy
I guess.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Miranda
The bitch insults me in front of the whole class. You beg to go next. You
shuffle up like a house slave, like a brownnose, kissing ass.
Jeremy
I guess I’m paying good money to be able to act.
Miranda
The chorus doesn’t stand there, duh! and talk. They dance. I’m a dancer. A
movement artist. She forgets about that. She stops me after each word. Then
she treats me like a cunt.
Jeremy
You do have your period.
Miranda
It’s no business of hers.
Jeremy
I guess another woman can tell.
Miranda
I was not up all night having cramps.
Jeremy
No way.
Miranda
You better bottle the smell. I am not some dumb chick you fuck. I worked hard
on that dance.
[She storms off. Jeremy leans against the wall.]
Jeremy
Must be my lucky day.
[Sarah approaches. She has bloody paper towels wrapped around her hand.]
Sarah
Jeremy, what happened in there?
Jeremy
What’d you do to your hand?
[He reaches out to touch her, then stops.]
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Sarah
I was picking up the glass.
Jeremy
Glass?
Sarah
What do you think?
Jeremy
I guess I don’t know.
Sarah
You threw a chair.
Jeremy
At you? Not at you. I wouldn’t do that…
Sarah
Not at me. Not at anyone, thank God. At the mirror. (She understands) At your
own face in the mirror.
[Jeremy holds his hair with hands and slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the
floor.]
Jeremy
Man, oh, man.
Sarah
Jeremy, you do remember what you did?
Jeremy
I was doing Tiresias’s speech. I was inside it, way inside, you know.
Sarah
I do know, but, Jeremy, right now, you’re in big trouble.
Jeremy
Augury was easy. I started trembling.
Sarah
Yes, that’s right. It was a strong start.
Jeremy
Really? Because I didn’t think you were paying attention.
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Sarah
I was riveted.
Jeremy
I thought you were drifting because you were scribbling.
Sarah
I was on the edge of my seat.
Jeremy
Like you were somewhere else.
Sarah
I was right there, taking notes. You’ve got talent, you know.
Jeremy
I felt it, just like you said.
Sarah
Yes, but, Jeremy, you threw a chair. The building supervisor notified the dean.
Jeremy
I’ve got talent you said?
Sarah
The dean wants to speak to each of us, separately. Tell me you remember what
you did?
Jeremy
It was good?
Sarah
Look, I can’t go into Muffler’s office with you. You’ve got to sit there and nod
your head. Don’t disagree. Just say “I’m sorry” over and over.
Jeremy
About the mirror, you mean?
Sarah
That’s right. Because you put people in danger.
Jeremy
I was frightened. Everyone was.
Sarah
You bet.
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Jeremy
You insulted Miranda in front of the whole class.
Sarah
I, what?
Jeremy
You told everyone about her blood, you know. You pretended like she can’t act.
It’s true, but it’s nobody’s business but ours.
Sarah
It was a figure of speech.
Jeremy
I was upset. She ran out of class. The more I said my speech, the worse it got.
Sarah
That’s what you’re going to tell the dean? (He goes.) Jeremy.
Scene 4
[Sarah and Alan’s bedroom. That night. Sarah enters and begins to get ready for bed.]
Sarah
Alan. Are you up?
Alan
No, Sarah, I’m not up.
Sarah
Alan.
Alan
I’m not up, Sarah.
Sarah
Please.
Alan
I’m asleep.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Alan.
Alan
Sarah, honey. Stop. Let it go. Rest.
Sarah
Right. (Silence) You need your sleep.
Alan
We went over this ten times tonight.
Sarah
I should have stopped him, that’s what.
Alan
I have a donors meeting tomorrow, yes.
Sarah
A donors meeting, of course.
Alan
Good. So, tomorrow we’ll talk some more, if you like. At dinner. I’ll take you
out..
Sarah
Right. A big day coming up. You’re a success.
Alan
Please.
Sarah
My husband, the savior. Donors arrive at his door. The executive director of
the Refugee Relief Committee doesn’t have time to talk to his wife.
[She clicks on the light and sits up in bed. He reaches over her and clicks the light off.
Silence. She puts the light on, again.]
Alan
We talked all evening, Sarah, all through dinner. You talked to me that is, at
me, in one of your endless monologues. It’s been years since I’ve heard that
hysterical tone in your voice. Nothing I said made any difference. It never did. I
know all about this, Sarah. You are obsessed by that boy. You have always
been obsessed.
Sarah
This marriage is over.
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Alan
He’s crude, but pretty. A pet.
[Sarah clicks off the light.]
Sarah
You miserable lout.
Alan
Fine. I have to be up by six.
Sarah
I am humiliated, Alan. Not obsessed. The fine points, as always, elude you.
Alan
Please. I’ve got refugees all over the world depending on this thing tomorrow.
Sarah
Good, because our marriage is done.
Alan
We’ll talk about all of this, Sarah, after work.
Sarah
Right. Such important work as yours cannot wait. If you cut through the red
tape, children will be able to eat. What do I do? It’s so insanely unimportant,
isn’t it. A kid freaks out in my class. So what. He’s not from the third world.
He doesn’t live in a Palestinian refugee camp. He doesn’t live in Iraq. He’s a
white kid. He doesn’t count. And my job. My job? You thought you married
an actress. You thought you married a star. A woman who would look good on
your arm.
Alan
Nonsense. You weren’t working when I married you.
Sarah
And thirty-years into it…
Alan
You were falling apart..
Sarah
…you find out I’m a wrinkled, sag-bellied failure with thinning pubic hair who
speaks in monologues without end. And you need to change things, don’t you,
Alan? You need to make a huge difference in the world. What do I need? I
need to drudge along with the wreck of my life, the wreck of my dreams. As if
you never messed up our lives.
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[Alan snaps on the light]
Alan
All right, Sarah, let’s talk.
Sarah
(turning off the light)
Too late. This time it is really too late. I’m going to sleep.
Alan
Sarah? (no answer) I do love you, Sarah.
Sarah
We’ll talk tomorrow. After you’ve massaged your donors…after that.
[Long silence. Alan snores. The doorbell rings.]
Scene 5
[Silence. The doorbell rings, insistently this time. Sarah gets up, wraps herself in Alan’s
red and white striped terry-cloth robe. She goes to the door. Someone knocks.]
Sarah
Who’s there? (silence) Who is it? What do you want? (silence, then knocking)
Who? (silence) You’ve got the wrong door. Go away.
Jeremy
It’s Jeremy. Thrasher. (an angry knock) Augury.
Sarah
Jeremy. It’s three in the morning. What do you want?
Jeremy
Open up.
[They stand facing each other through the door]
Sarah
You didn’t sit there, did you, saying “I’m sorry”.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Jeremy
Look, I’m sorry about that.
Sarah
Sorry. Great.
Jeremy
I couldn’t sleep.
Sarah
Neither could I.
[They enter the living room; Jeremy looks around like he’s casing the place.]
Sarah
He’s taken my class away.
Jeremy
No way.
Sarah
I get paid by the class. I don’t have a full-time salary.
Jeremy
Look, I’ve got to talk. This is a pretty nice place.
Sarah
The dean spoke with your girl friend, what the hell is her name? Anyway, she
acted up quite a storm. Wept right on cue.
Jeremy
Look, I didn’t mean…
Sarah
To say it was my fault that you threw your chair through the mirror because I
said your girlfriend had her period and that got you so upset.
Jeremy
Right. You live here alone?
Sarah
Because that is what you said.
Jeremy
I guess.
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Sarah
There is someone in the next room.
Jeremy
You’re not alone.
Sarah
From your place of augury, you don’t guess, you speak. Do you normally fuck
up people’s lives?
Jeremy
Look, there’s no one else in the entire world I can talk to but you.
[Sarah motions to the white couch]
Sarah
There. You can sit. (He does.) Why did you lie, Jeremy? (He touches the
couch, motioning to her to sit down.) My husband is in the next room.
Jeremy
You already said.
Sarah
Not for long.
Jeremy
Let me talk.
Sarah
My husband, I mean.
Jeremy
Oh, newlyweds.
Sarah
Not quite. What’s up?
Jeremy
Look, I freaked out.
Sarah
You threw a chair.
Jeremy
I did.
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Sarah
At your own face.
[Impulsively, she takes a lock of his hair, and puts it behind his ear.]
It was not because I said, whatever it was that I said, that ditsy girl, Miranda!
that’s it. You wouldn’t risk your career to defend that girl’s honor. She’s a
lousy actress. She’s not even that interested in you.
Jeremy
Look, that’s between me and her.
Sarah
You get my class taken away, the least I can do, is tell you. Watch out. Where
is she right now, for example?
Jeremy
How do I know? At home, asleep.
Sarah
Right.
Jeremy
I don’t care where she is. (He shakes his head) I’m not here to talk about her.
[Jeremy reaches for her hand, holds it and then brings it to his lips. Sarah, brought
back to reality, snatches her hand away.]
Jeremy
You touched me.
Sarah
Your hair.
Jeremy
My hair, face, so what, you touched.
Sarah
I’m sorry.
Jeremy
Sorry! I guess.
Sarah
Sorry, yes.
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Jeremy
That’s not what I thought.
Sarah
I was thinking of someone else.
Jeremy
Great. The husband in the next room.
Sarah
Not him.
Jeremy
Good for you.
Sarah
It was a long time ago.
Jeremy
Some young guy you came onto to?
Sarah
I don’t “come onto” young men, Jeremy. Let us be very clear. You arrived here.
Jeremy
I don’t know. I’ve been come onto before.
Sarah
I’m certain you have.
Jeremy
Well, it’s true. By an older woman, too.
Sarah
Perhaps, but not me.
Jeremy
Sure, you were coming onto to someone else. It was just my hair you touched.
Sarah
(laughs)
That’s it, you know. You are finally telling the truth. Good.
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Jeremy
Look, you’ve got to talk to the dean. He thinks, I don’t know. He wants to
send me to counseling. I’ve got to go, he says, if I want to stay in school.
Sarah
Sure. I have lots of influence, you see. I have lots of influence because you
lied...
Jeremy
But, she has it. How did you know?
Sarah
Go to counseling, Jeremy. It might do you good. Of course, the counselors at
the school are fools.
Jeremy
Listen to me.
Sarah
Otherwise, they’d be in private practice wouldn’t they? Otherwise, I’d be on
stage.
Jeremy
Sarah, can I call you Sarah? You said we could the first day of class. I’ve got
to stay in school. Everything I’ve done I’ve done to get here. It’s so fucking
stupid. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m an actor. I know it. You know what my
father does? He’s a butcher. Mainly he grunts and waves a knife. Now, I’m
acting the Greeks. I’m acting the Greeks because you taught me how.
Sarah
Yes, Jeremy, I taught you. But, you know what, you already knew. You really
can’t teach anyone anything they don’t already have inside. You can open them
up. That’s all. Your father, the butcher, was he in Vietnam?
Jeremy
Yeah, you sure opened me. Big time. Sit down, please, Sarah, sit. (He pulls
her next to him on the couch.) You have to talk to the dean. You’ve got to tell
him I’m not fucked up. I just got opened up. I don’t need to talk about that.
You can explain.
Sarah
It’s late. We both have to get up very soon.
Jeremy
You’ll talk to the dean?
25
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Tell me what happened in class.
Jeremy
Yeah, okay, I will tell you. I was doing the speech of the prophet, see. Tiresias’
speech, the blind guy, and he’s giving this prophecy when all of a sudden, he’s
saying that the fat isn’t burning, that the altars are glutted with the fat thigh
bones smoking, that the gods’ aren’t hearing, that they won’t take the offering
in. And that’s when it hits me, shit, fuck, like a truck, it hits. We’ve been cut
off. We’re floating free in space and even the gods aren’t listening; they don’t
care anymore. We’ve gone too far. They won’t take our offerings. I’m a
Catholic. I was brought up to believe in forgiveness. In redemption, see. You
say you’re sorry. You say you’ve sinned. It’s okay. God forgives you. You say
twenty Hail Mary’s and you’re back in. He’s a forgiving god. But all of a
sudden I think it might not work that way, you see what I mean? It might work
another way. You might go too far. You might step off the end of the earth.
There might be no way back. The altars might be glutted with flesh. And that’s
when I saw, like I didn’t see out of my eyes. I was blind. I saw it inside my
head. How it is when the gods can’t bear to listen. They can’t bear to hear
anymore. They’ve already heard it all. You can’t ask for forgiveness. The gods
aren’t hearing. They’re fed up with us, sick. We’re cut off. I got scared.
Sarah
And you threw the chair?
Jeremy
That’s it.
Sarah
Makes perfect sense.
Jeremy
That’s what I think. I’m not crazy. You see. I’m not crazy at all.
Sarah
It had nothing to do with that girl.
Jeremy
Of course not. Why do you keep talking about her?
Sarah
Jeremy, what are you frightened of?
Jeremy
Nothing. The idea, of course.
26
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
I see.
Jeremy
You do? Because you weren’t paying attention. You were thinking about
someone else.
Sarah
Please.
Jeremy
Look, you’ve got to talk to the dean. You weren’t listening to me.
I threw the chair. You woke up.
Sarah
Leave. You’ve got to go.
Jeremy
Talk to him. Damn it!
[Jeremy slams his hand hard against the wall.]
Sarah
Quiet! My husband is in the next room.
Jeremy
Please. I’ve got to stay in school. (She nods her head, ‘yes’.) You will?
Sarah
I will.
Jeremy
Promise?
Sarah
Scout’s honor, Jeremy Thrasher. In the morning. Go home.
Jeremy
Thank you. Really, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
[Impulsively, he grabs Sarah and kisses her awkwardly, chastely, on the cheek. She’s
charmed, in spite of herself.]
Sarah
(laughing and pushing him out the door)
Out, Thrasher, out.
27
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
28
[Jeremy exits. Sarah leans against the door, her hand on her cheek. A light comes on in
the hall. Alan’s voice]
Alan
Sarah? Are you all right?
Sarah
But, of course.
Alan
I heard something slam. Voices, too.
Sarah
There’s nothing. Go back to bed.
[Alan comes in; he has pulled on pants and a shirt, half unbuttoned. He looks around.]
Alan
Entertaining the door man because your husband’s a lout?
Sarah
It was him, my student. Upset. We talked. Cleared things up.
Alan
Well, good. (pause) I’m sorry, Sarah, I am.
[He takes her hand and leads her over to the couch. They both sit. After a moment she
snuggles into him, buries her head in his chest.]
Alan
The things you say, sometimes, Sarah; I never know what’s coming next.
[Sarah kisses Alan on the cheek.]
Alan
You’ve hardly ruined your life. You do wonderful work with those kids. You
teach them how to feel, to think.
Sarah
She was dancing like a chorus girl. That’s what the word chorus means to her.
Alan
That boy; he’s the real thing, you said.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
A kid breaks a mirror in my class because I’m somewhere else…what do you
call that, Alan?
Alan
A trigger. You got snapped back to your paradise lost.
Sarah
We each have our own never was.
Alan
Our marriage is all the more precious for that.
Sarah
More improbable, in any case.
Alan
Our chimera of love. The odd beast we’ve made over time. Not of burden.
That’s not what I mean.
Sarah
You don’t need me, do you, Alan? Not like that.
Alan
Like what? Of course, I need you.
Sarah
You’re so rational, poised, in control. You pick up the pieces; put things back
together, save people…
Alan
Go talk to Chuck Muffler. Tell him to give your class back.
Sarah
Chuck Muffler. That I have to bow and scrape before him.
Alan
You can act a little superior.
Sarah
He calls himself Charles now. Sober as a dean.
Alan
You are superior in every way.
29
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
30
Sarah
I ought to have stopped him before he freaked out.
Alan
Hey, no one got hurt.
[She takes his hand, as if to lead him back to bed.]
Alan
I’ll stay up. Do some work.
Sarah
Alan, I do hate this rug…
Scene 6
[ Sarah breaks away from Alan, turns goes upstage, then turns and finishes her thought
setting up the first memory scene:]
Sarah
I hate this rug because of what happened here in 1981.
[Alan paces with a drink in his hand. Romantic music from a stereo. The door opens,
silently, and in walks a much younger woman. She is dressed professionally, in slim
pants, white shirt, low shoes; she holds an armful of documents. Sarah watches from the
door as this memory scene unfolds, a slightly slow, stylized rhythm..]
Hala
Where’s Sarah?
Alan
Sarah phoned. Technical rehearsal. Late night. Don’t wait up.
Hala
You phoned.
Alan
I thought, let’s work here, then. You also live uptown. I’ll order something in.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Hala
Fine.
[She sits down on the couch, clutching the documents in front of her, like a shield]
Alan
Can I fix you a drink?
Hala
All right.
Alan
My God, you’re beautiful.
Hala
Please… (she stands)
Alan
Breathtaking. You.
Hala
Alan, we must not…
Alan
Hala, you take my breath away.
[Hala backs away from him.]
Alan
Hala, stop. Don’t go. I’m sorry. Sometimes one has to say what’s on one’s
mind. To clear the air. It’s over now. Nothing will happen. Nothing can
happen. Sarah is my wife. She was my lover before that. She was my friend.
She was a girl who needed saving. She was, always, there is, will always be,
Sarah. But, Hala, you are something else. Beautiful, brilliant, and so calm.
Sarah is, well, Sarah is not calm. That’s one thing Sarah is not, calm, that is.
Brilliant, yes, in an artistic sort of way. But Sarah is not someone you can
count on, really, at least not me. I was never able to count on her. I feel I can
count on you. There is something steadfast in your nature. That is odd because
I can see the hurt in your eyes. You have dark eyes with sorrows inside. I
would like to share your sorrows, Hala. The whole of you, I would like to know.
I’m making a hash of this, a mess. But Sarah is not coming home tonight until
late, that is, very late. I would like to hold you, Hala, in my arms. I would like to
give you what comfort I can. I can’t promise anything. I can’t. But I can tell
you this: I will never abandon you. I will stand by you if…I would be there for
you and a child.
31
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
32
[Hala backs out of the door. Sarah gives the smallest of screams and backs away, too.]
[Alan remains standing, looking at the door. After a moment, it opens. Hala returns,
wearing a different coat, without the documents in her arms. She walks forward to the
rug.]
Hala
Alan, I’m pregnant.
[Alan stands for a moment, without speaking. Then he goes to Hala. He kisses her face,
her belly, gently, very gently, in awe. He gets down on his knees in front of her.]
Alan
A blessing. Thank you. My goddess. My darling. My precious. We make life.
[His arms are around her feet. Carefully, she steps out of his embrace and out the door.
Alan falls asleep on the floor. Sarah opens the door and enters the room; she stumbles
over Alan, who startles awake.]
Sarah
Alan? Oh, sweetie, you waited up. How adorable, my adorable, sweet
husband. Come on, let’s go to bed. The tech was horrendous.
HORRENDOUS. The producer smokes Cuban cigars. Sips from a flask. Made
a fortune in something. Now, he wants meaning in his life. What a profession. I
do nothing for an entire year, now, all of a sudden…I’m not complaining. It’s
going to be good. Alan, I really think this one time, I will get what I deserve. I
am going to be seen.
Alan
Great, Sarah. That’s great. I hope so. I really do.
Sarah
I know you do, baby. How sweet of you to try to wait up.
[She feels or sees something on the floor, a pair of women’s underwear.]
Sarah
What are these? Whose are these? Oh, shit, Alan, oh shit. Someone was here.
Answer me. Were you fucking some bitch on my rug?
Alan
I was not “fucking some bitch.”
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
(she dangles the underwear)
Are you a cross dresser?
Alan
Sarah, it’s very late. I want you to get some sleep. I’ll stay on the couch.
Sarah
What are you saying, Alan, what? The couch? So, it’s true. You are not a cross
dresser. I would have understood that, you know. I’m a tolerant person.
Alan
We should speak in the morning.
Sarah
You are jealous of my success.
Alan
Of course not. This is not about that.
Sarah
Then, why now? Why tonight? You’ve been faithful through everything else.
Tonight, you bring some slut into my house. A ninny. Don’t lie to me. Some
NYU student you picked up in a bar. Who is she? Why?
Alan
Calm down, Sarah, please. Think about your career. It is so very important to
you.
Sarah
You’re the one who wanted to be married to a star. Is this the day you’ve been
waiting for all along? Obviously, you hoped to get caught.
[She drops the underpants on the rug.]
Alan
You won’t believe me if I tell you I love you. I hardly believe it myself.
Sarah
(suddenly perfectly calm)
All right, Alan. Tell me the truth. Then I’ll go straight to sleep. I’ll get up in
the morning. I’ll use all this for my work. I’ll put it right into Nora. Believe
me, I can do that.
Alan
Promise?
33
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Yes.
Alan
All right, then. It’s Hala.
Sarah
You slimy bastard.
Alan
You want to know, I’m telling you.
Sarah
You fucking imperialist.
Alan
Hala is my colleague.
Sarah
She works for you, in your office, you prick.
Alan
There is nothing wrong with me.
Sarah
No?
Alan
My sperm count, in fact, is rather high, above average.
Sarah
You’re an above average sort of guy.
Alan
I want a child.
Sarah
Right. We’d adopt someday, we agreed, if we ever wanted that’s what we’d do.
Alan
My doctor suggested. Just to make sure. I agreed, without thinking, really. I
had no idea, Sarah, believe me, I had no idea at all, none. The desire came over
me so suddenly…
34
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
All those sperm fighting to get out.
Alan
When my father died.
Sarah
Oh my god, Alan, very good. Play the Holocaust card.
Alan
It is hardly, Sarah, as you insist, in your own inimitable way, “the Holocaust
card.”
Sarah
I can’t trump the gas chambers. You get to have whatever you want…
Alan
Shut up.
Sarah
All those great-aunts and uncles you never knew.
Alan
My father, Sarah, a remarkable person. He saved many people, worked, slaved,
to bring people, here, to this country, as you know very well. I do not want his
story to end with me.
Sarah
Not his story, his DNA.
Alan
I had no idea, no idea at all I would need my own child. It’s some sort of
biological thing. I am not in control.
Sarah
Forgive me, Alan.
Alan
Oh, Sarah, yes, long ago.
Sarah
But, I am not able to forgive.
Alan
You might try, Sarah. Please.
35
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
You could have bought eggs from Hala, Alan, had them implanted in me, or in
someone else, if my play runs, if it was blood you wanted to mix.
Alan
Why does this sound so crude in your mouth?
Sarah
I can’t imagine, really, I can’t.
Alan
We are not molecules but souls. I had to be there.
Sarah
Are you going to divorce me, Alan, if Hala is pregnant that is? Are you finally
going to leave me then?
Alan
It is possible to love two women at the same time.
Sarah
A harem.
[Sarah gets up and she begins a belly dance, slowly at first, but maniacally.]
Alan
I don’t know what to do.
Sarah
(dancing faster)
Go away, Alan. Get.
Alan
Sarah, stop.
Sarah
First wife is tossed into the garbage...
Alan
Enough!
Sarah
Shame. For being infertile.
[She flings the underpants at Alan, dancing wildly.]
36
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan
I still love you, Sarah.
[Sarah stops dancing.]
Alan
I don’t know how to explain.
Sarah
And Hala, too?
Alan
Yes, and Hala, too.
[Sarah sinks down to the rug. Alan stuffs the underpants in his pocket.]
Alan
We are enlightened people, let us think.
Sarah
Who thinks at a time like this?
Alan
Then, let’s get some sleep.
Sarah
Sleep!
Alan
Come to bed.
Sarah
Go. I will stay here on this rug. “Stewed in corruption” in the seamy stink of
your love.
[Alan exits to bedroom. During Sarah’s speech light slowly begins to pour through the
window so that by its end, she is bathed in the morning sun. She speaks directly to the
audience. ]
Sarah
I bought this rug. I picked it out so we could start fresh. White… (She laughs)
The other rug, the red one where Lukas and I slept, I rolled up and stored in the
basement because I cannot bear to throw it out. The night we protested the
bombing of Hanoi. The night we thought the war would never end. I pulled
37
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Lukas off the street. I was forever pulling Lukas away from the police. He was
always aching for a fight. I brought him up here. It was a collective apartment,
then. Below, on the street there was tear gas. Lukas told me he had flunked all
of his classes, except one. In English composition I gave him an “A”. He
would go to Canada, he said, to avoid the draft. Or join the Weathermen, and
become a real revolutionary. “Go to Canada,” I told him, “Please. I’ll come to
you, there”. I leaned down to taste him again. When finally we finished, when
he lay beside me on the red rug and I cradled him in my arms, he smiled and
said he had figured out what he should do. He would leave school and get
himself drafted. He would join the GI resistance and organize from the inside.
He sat up. He saw his destiny plain: “When the army refuses to fight the war
will end.” “Don’t be an ass hole,” I said. “Kiss me,” he said. I want your child,
Lukas, but I couldn’t say that to him. “Don’t be a hero,” I said. “You know
how long those guys live in the jungle.” “I’m working class,” he said. “Those
are my men.” “Stay here. You can make up your failing grades. I’ll talk to the
dean.” We lived in our grief, legs looped, sex linked. “It’s okay,” Lukas said,
“Whatever happens to me it will be fine. There’s no time for personal
happiness, now.” He learned to talk that way at Columbia. “Little kids are
being napalmed. This shit has to stop.” “I’ll give up Alan for you. I’ll call him
in Cambridge right now.” I reached for the phone. But Lukas was only 19. He
was more frightened of me than of Vietnam.
Scene 7
[The Dean’s Office. Later that morning. Dean Charles Muffler, sits behind his large
desk, chewing on a Cuban cigar. On the desk there is an over-sized snow globe of a
barnyard scene which he strokes with his free hand and peers into.]
[Muffler sees Sarah and waves her in.]
Charles
Come on in, Sarah, come. What’s on your mind? At ten, I’ve got the Ford
Foundation.
Sarah
Jeremy Thrasher.
38
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Charles
Quite a name. Like a character in a play.
Sarah
He does tend to make waves.
Charles
Sarah, I’m going to give your class back.
Sarah
Good. (pause, during which Muffler drums his fingers on his desk) Thanks.
Charles
We all make mistakes. I’ve put the Thrasher boy somewhere else.
Sarah
I wish you wouldn’t call him that.
Charles
You were quite distraught, yesterday. You seemed in over your head. Maybe
things at home....
Sarah
Alan and I are just fine, Chuck.
Charles
Charles, if you don’t mind. Chuck was my Broadway name. Dean Charles
Muffler. Glad to hear married life is good. Sometimes one bad egg, one rotten
apple, you know…
Sarah
Are you speaking of Jeremy Thrasher?
Charles
I’m being harsh, over-harsh; I’m over-stating my case. Still, sometimes, a
student needs another approach. In any case, the class is yours. No need to ask.
Sarah
I want Jeremy Thrasher back. He’s the best actor I have.
Charles
It will cost us eight or nine hundred to replace that mirror. Mercifully, no one
got hurt. Let me handle the Thrasher boy. You get the rest of the class.
Sarah
Jeremy, too. Trust me.
39
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Charles
Thrasher’s here on scholarship.
Sarah
So?
Charles
Working class, a bit out of his element.
Sarah
If only you could hear yourself speak.
Charles
Let’s not wrangle, my dear.
Sarah
Right. I’ll work with him privately. Independent study. Greek tragedy. I tell
you, he’s got the touch.
Charles
Bad idea. I’ll work with him. Let him do something light. Situate the narrative
in another part of the self.
Sarah
You wanted to send him for counseling.
[Charles drums his fingers on his desk.]
Sarah
Charles?
Charles
No. No counseling, no. Counseling is not a requirement anymore. I’ve gone
over the boy’s record. I’ll stick him in my monologue class. We’re doing
Moliere and Goldoni. Both are smart, both are snappy. Counseling is not
advised at the moment. Give my best to Alan. What’s he up to, by the way?
Sarah
Refugee policy, the usual stuff. Why no counseling, Charles?
Charles
It’s over and done. Best to move on. We were lucky the glass didn’t fly. I
shudder to think.
40
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
It won’t happen again. What is over and done?
Charles
He’s a good man, Alan, officer material. A pity he never served.
Sarah
You know Alan was a draft resistor. You know that Charles.
Charles
I thought it was just an array of student deferments he got.
Sarah
Everyone got student deferments in those days.
Charles
Not everyone.
Sarah
No, Charles. Not you. You got medals, defense contracts, too.
Charles
And you got “A Doll’s House” on Broadway.
I apologize for nothing I’ve done.
[Charles picks up the snow globe and stares into it.]
Sarah
You asked my forgiveness on opening night.
Charles
I’ve been sober, now, a long time.
Sarah
You asked my forgiveness for getting drunk?
Charles
I don’t want you fraternizing with our students, my dear.
Sarah
What did you need forgiveness for? Mine, that is. Not the forgiveness of your
three wives. Tell me, Chuck, Charles, in your own words.
Charles
Young men get hurt, Sarah, when they are pushed. The Greeks are too much.
41
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
42
Sarah
I disagree. The Greeks hold us when we can’t hold ourselves. Tragedy keeps us
honest, in fact.
[He puts the globe down]
Charles
Young men are vulnerable, you, of all people, ought to know.
Sarah
Chuck it, Charles.
Charles
Touché. Nevertheless, this Thrasher boy has had something stirred up, not, I
think by the Greeks. When that happens, we are no longer effective teachers;
pedagogy flies out the window…mirrors become shattered. Next time, a student
could be harmed. Then, I could not give your class back to you, Sarah, or any
class, for that matter. (he walks around his desk to dismiss her, but in a warm,
expansive way). Always good to have you stop by. Give my regards to Alan.
We ought to get together sometime. Reminisce. Are you still such a good
cook?
Scene 8
[Hallway, immediately afterwards. Jeremy has been waiting for Sarah, sitting in the hall.
As Sarah comes out of the dean’s office, he jumps up and stands in front of her. He is
edgy, hyped up, and does not completely understand that Muffler manipulated him.]
Jeremy
Yeah, well, thanks a lot.
Sarah
You’re welcome, Jeremy, you can skip therapy.
Jeremy
Big deal. You took me out of your class.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
I took you?
Jeremy
You told him you couldn’t handle me. I’m “unruly” he said you said. I didn’t
need to look it up.
Sarah
Charles Muffler said I said that? This does not augur well because I never said
such a thing.
Jeremy
I don’t care what you said. I need you. The dean said I can’t have you.
Sarah
Look, about last night…
Jeremy
Why did you tell him I came over last night?
Sarah
I did not.
Jeremy
He said you said, he asked, I thought, anyway....
Sarah
I have just come out of his door, as you can see since you’ve obviously been
lying in wait,
Jeremy
What?
Sarah
So I couldn’t have said anything to him, could I, before he spoke with you?
Jeremy
How do I know? There are cell phones, email.
Sarah
Well, Jeremy Thrasher, contrary to your idea of yourself as the center of my life,
I had other things on my mind this morning besides calling Muffler. I spoke to
him because you asked me to. He’s agreed not to send you to counseling.
Although, frankly, I think you could use it. I argued to keep you in class.
43
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Jeremy
Great.
Sarah
I lost. So that’s the end of it. It’s been a pleasure, Jeremy, I wish you well.
Jeremy
What about last night?.
Sarah
I should never have opened the door.
Jeremy
Now, I’m inside.
Sarah
That was my mistake.
Jeremy
Of Tiresias, I mean. It’s going to come out one way or another. You’ve got to
be there.
Sarah
Look, you’ll be doing Moliere.
Jeremy
What the fuck does that mean?
Sarah
You’ve been moved into Muffler’s monologue class. It’s an honor. You should
be pleased. Don’t swear at me.
Jeremy
Oh, fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, look. Please. Let me just do the speech for
you, one time. I won’t bother you ever again. I can pay you. I will pay you.
Sarah
Stop. Enough.
Jeremy
I’ll come to your house, anytime. Anytime you are free.
Sarah
Absolutely not.
44
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Jeremy
Something is inside of me. They put it there. The Greeks. No one can help me
but you. Tonight?
Sarah
It’s not possible. It’s not right.
Jeremy
Right. He shouldn’t pull us apart. Two of us who love the Greeks. And I do, let
me tell you. I love them like you.
Sarah
Dean Muffler will tell you he, also, loves the Greeks.
Jeremy
Look, I do believe in redemption, only now there’s something new. I’ve been
thinking about it all night, ever since, last night, you know. It’s something
we’ve got to go through.
Sarah
That’s right. That’s it exactly..
Jeremy
So, I’ve got to finish that speech. I can’t just leave it like that. I threw a fucking
chair through a mirror. I need help. I know. With the words.
Sarah
All right, Jeremy. You win. Eight o’clock. My husband will be home.
Jeremy
Fine, okay, anything you say. It’s a date.
Sarah
It’s a rehearsal, that’s what.
Jeremy
I’m not dangerous. I would never hurt you.
45
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
46
Scene 9
[Sarah walks into a Memory Scene, 1982: Dining room at Sarah’s and Alan’s. Alan sits
at the dinner table, finishing a last bite. As Sarah passes through, she transitions into the
memory by remembering what Muffler said to her last thing in the office that morning;
she touches Alan’s head, lightly. He neither sees nor reacts to her. ]
Sarah
I am a good cook. I made the pasta from scratch. Alan was leaving the next day,
business trip. It was 1982.
[The table is littered with dirty dishes. Alan takes two airline tickets from his pocket and
puts them on the table, his hand over them. He calls to Sarah, in the kitchen.]
Alan
Sarah, I want a child.
[She calls back]
Sarah
Fine. Good. I agree. How about Columbian?
Alan
No coffee, thanks.
Sarah
I meant from Columbia, country of. I’ll steam the milk.
Alan
No, thanks. My stomach is upset.
Sarah
Poor dear.
Alan
My child, Sarah.
Sarah
Ours. A girl math prodigy from China. So adorable. Or a little boy with an
Afro. Sweet.
Alan
Hala is pregnant, Sarah.
[Sarah enters from the kitchen, now, as her younger self; she is dressed in jeans,
disheveled, a dishcloth in her hands.]
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Hala miscarried. I forgave you. Over and done.
Alan
Hala is pregnant again.
[She sinks into a chair and begins to eat the leftover lasagna from the bowl with her
fingers.]
Sarah
How Abrahamic, Alan, really, truly, how profound. I’m impressed. Ishmael, is
that what you’ll call it? You can start the whole cycle over again.
Alan
It might have worked with us, Sarah, if you had tried.
Sarah
My womb rotted, Alan. Fell out between my legs.
Alan
Don’t be repulsive.
Sarah
Me, repulsive? You’re the one who impregnated your office assistant.
Alan
Colleague.
Sarah
Twice. Two times!
Alan
Hala and I are…we are together all the time.
Sarah
You’re having a midlife crisis, my dear. And she can have an abortion.
Alan
Like you, and your Lukas, the only one whose child you wanted to have, the one
you kept on getting pregnant with, how many times, was it, Sarah?. And so
when I finally got you, when I finally won you, after Lukas was dead, it was too
late for us.
Sarah
I never lied to you about the abortion. One, Alan, one.
47
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan
And I’m not lying to you.
Sarah
How the fuck could you do this again?
Alan
Because I want a separation.
Sarah
You don’t mean that. You can’t. We are like, always us…before Lukas, even.
Alan
Stop. I promised Hala if she became pregnant again, I would be more than the
father of her child. We would make a life.
Sarah
You discussed this?
Alan
Of course.
Sarah
It wasn’t a mad fit of passion, a late night when you couldn’t think straight,
after Sabra and Shatila, or some other horrible event? Overwhelmed, distraught.
It wasn’t on our rug. You had sheets. You spoke about when and where in the
yellow light of late afternoon. You planned.
Alan
Close enough, I’m afraid.
Sarah
You’re leaving me?
Alan
Yes. I am.
Sarah
But I love you.
Alan
Sarah, don’t.
Sarah
And you love me, that’s what you say, Alan, right now, please…
48
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan
It won’t be…oh, Sarah…I’ll try…. I don’t intend never to see you, again. I
don’t intend to put you out of my life, that is, if you can stand it. Oh, darling, I
didn’t want it to come to this. But I’ve gone and done it. It seems that I can’t
have both. My dearest friend Sarah, and a child and a wife.
Sarah
I feel like Medea. I feel like poisoning her.
Alan
If you were Medea, this never would have happened.
Sarah
Right. Two sons. I am a vessel and you’re trading me in.
Alan
Stop, darling, stop. I can’t take any more.
Sarah
Then, send her away.
Alan
Away?
Sarah
Give her money; we can support it. When it’s older it can come around.
Alan
“It”?
Sarah
I’ll forgive you. I promise I will. I want to kill you, too, now, of course, wring
your neck, but we both know that won’t last.
Alan
“It” is my child.
Sarah
Bastard.
Alan
Hala will be the mother of my child. I can forget you, Sarah. I can’t, of course.
I won’t.
Sarah
49
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
All right, Alan. Have it your way.
Alan
You understand?
Sarah
Shredding your life. It should be done every decade, I think. We were long
overdo. Why, I ought to have walked out on you.
Alan
You should never have married me, Sarah. You never loved me.
Sarah
I never loved you! I adored you, worshipped you. You taught me everything I
know.
Alan
I got you by default. After Lukas died, you came back. I thought I could live
with that, I wanted you so, and maybe I could.
Sarah
What happened to Lukas in Vietnam? Tell me the truth.
Alan
How would I know. I was 4-F, remember.
Sarah
Not a conscientious objector?
Alan
Philosophically, yes. I had a psychiatrist’s note.
Sarah
Who killed Lukas, Alan?
Alan
Sarah, please, our marriage is falling apart.
Sarah
Lukas was murdered. He wanted me to know.
Alan
Lukas was brain dead, Sarah. Lukas could not speak.
Sarah
Help me, Alan, with this. I won’t bother you ever again.
50
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
51
Alan
Help you with what? Please. I feel like I’ve got to throw up.
Sarah
I didn’t poison you, I’m sorry to say.
Alan
I’ve got to lie down.
[Alan exits to bedroom. Sarah starts going through his jacket pocket. We hear Alan
vomiting, the toilet flushing. She calls after him.]
Sarah
It’s just your sperm count, acting up.
[She finds a pair of airline tickets and she rips one up. She puts on a coat and goes out.]
Scene 10
[Continuation of Memory Scene, 1982. A street outside a restaurant, later that same
night. It’s raining. Hala Jaber paces on the wet street. She goes inside just as Sarah
Golden approaches. . Hala takes a seat at the table. Sarah enters.]]
Hala
Sarah, how amazing, really.
Sarah
It is, isn’t it?
Hala
Do you often come here?
Sarah
This is our favorite restaurant, Alan’s and mine. He proposed to me here. At
the same table at which you are sitting.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Hala
Really?
Sarah
Not really, I’m kidding.
Hala
I see.
Sarah
He’s not coming.
Hala
I don’t understand.
Sarah
My husband, Alan, sent me instead.
Hala
Instead? Of what?
Sarah
Let’s not play games.
Hala
All right, let’s not. I’m late.
Sarah
Yes, but Alan is not coming.
Hala
Then, I must go.
Sarah
Go. Where will you go?
Hala
Home, of course. It’s late. I’ve a plane early tomorrow.
Sarah
Such dignity, Hala, I’m impressed.
Hala
I should not be dignified? Do you think so?
52
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
I? No. Of course not. I admire you more than you know. It’s just me, I
suppose. My way is, well, Alan has told you all that. My husband, Alan, you
know; I’ve known Alan for a very long time. We were students together in the
sixties
Hala
A long time ago.
Sarah
I occupied buildings; Alan got the judge to drop charges. I’ve watched Alan
operate, so to speak. Then, in a fit of grief, I married. I rather suppose I owe
Alan my life. I suppose Alan has told you all this.
Hala
Alan has told me many things; we spend many hours together, after all, at work
and after. But, I really must be going. I’ve a lot on my mind. There is a war. I
am Lebanese.
Sarah
Not Egyptian.
Hala
Palestinian and Lebanese. My people are being killed.
Sarah
Not a slave from Egypt given to Abraham, given to Sarah, in fact, by Pharaoh,
given to barren Sarah, to bear the patriarch an heir.
Hala
I don’t need to listen to anymore. I have relatives in those camps.
[Hala exits the restaurant. Sarah follows her onto the street. Rain. Thunder.]
Sarah
Alan wants a child, from his loins, such a strange expression that, like a cut of
beef; yes, he wants a son, but Sarah is barren since Lukas’s child was dug out of
her, like a wad of fat cut from a lamb chop. I was half mad. I said “yes”, that is,
to Alan. I had the abortion. If I had not been grieving privately, so that Alan
would not see, and what is more private, after all, than the blood from a
woman’s insides, tears, great globs of them, then, well, who knows, we went on.
Our sex life became astonishingly good.
Hala
Let me give you a word of advice.
53
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
No, Hala, that’s not how it works. The other woman puts out; she does not get
to talk.
Hala
It might be correct, Sarah, if I were to tell you, now, about our plans, Alan’s and
mine, because, I think, perhaps, he has not.
Sarah
Alan did not come here to meet you tonight because Alan is not leaving me. In
some inextricable way, Alan and I are too tightly bound. We are barren, yet we
do love. Alan gave me this ticket to give to you.
[Sarah hands Hala the ticket. Hala takes the ticket from Sarah, and looks at it.]
Sarah
I’m sorry, Hala.
Hala
I don’t think so.
Sarah
I admire you, Hala. Alan does, too. We will often speak of you.
[Hala begins to walk away]
Sarah
Oh, and just one more thing. Don’t wait too long to get rid of it.
[Hala stops and looks at her.]
Hala
Alan did tell me about your abortion. He was quite clear. You had just been
hired to play Antigone, in a big important production. You could hardly play
Antigone, could you, if you were pregnant?
Sarah
Alan told you that?
Hala
54
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
55
And will you please tell Alan for me that I choose this child of ours. I will have
a girl. I will call her Mariam. Goodnight. Alan need not worry about us.
Scene 11
[The present. Outside bells. Eight o’clock. The phone rings, and rings. Sarah opens the
apartment door, in a rush, dressed as she was when she went to meet Charles Muffler
that morning. Sarah grabs the phone just in time. ]
Sarah
I just walked in. (pause) You were going to take me out tonight. Right. Are you
lying to me? Someone you “absolutely must see”? Has Hala come back, Alan,
after all these years? I was thinking about her, that’s all. I was, what can I say?
Some things you don’t forget. They pop up, like pop up books in your head.
(pause) I think I can tell when you’re lying, Alan. Fibbing, right. All right, I’ll
trust you. Later, then. Bye.
[Sarah puts down the phone. Jeremy pushes open the door and enters.]
Jeremy
Hey, you should be careful. Who knows who could get in? Where’s the
husband?
Sarah
He stepped out for a minute, to pick up Chinese food.
Jeremy
Okay. Fine.
Sarah
You want to start from the beginning, of the speech, I mean.
Jeremy
Just jump into it?
Sarah
Why not.
Jeremy
What if he comes back?
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
He won’t...
Jeremy
With the Chinese food.
Sarah
(she sits)
come back.
Jeremy
Where’s he gone, Taiwan?
Sarah
Sorry, sorry.
Jeremy
Right. You were thinking of someone else.
Sarah
Something else, okay. There’s a chair.
[He takes the chair, places it in the center of the room. He looks around.]
Jeremy
Just want to make sure there are no mirrors. (he laughs, nervously) Okay. All
right. Here we go.
[He clears his throat, tosses his head so that his hair falls down in front of his face,
covering his eyes. He reaches out like he can’t see. He begins but it sounds very flat.]
Jeremy
As I sat on the ancient seat of augury,
In the sanctuary where every bird I know
Will hover at my hands—
[He stops, stands, shakes his hands, his head]
Jeremy
Shit! I’m not into it. It’s terrible isn’t it?
Sarah
Pretty bad.
Jeremy
Look, let’s forget it.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Fine. You can go.
Jeremy
Why? What’s happened to me? Why can’t I do it? I feel like I’ve lost it. It’s
gone. I had it. I knew it. Now, I don’t have it anymore. What’s wrong?
Sarah
You’re scared.
Jeremy
No shit.
Sarah
You lost control, now you’re trying to control too much. You’ve got to just let
go.
Jeremy
I’m worried your husband will open that door, and I’ll freak out.
Sarah
Don’t be. He’s out until late.
Jeremy
You lied?
Sarah
I didn’t know.
Jeremy
No Chinese food.
Sarah
Maybe, but not with me.
Jeremy
Does he often do that? It’s not right.
Sarah
Look, you do the speech and then I’ll order us something to eat.
Jeremy
Sure. Okay. Cool.
[She goes to him and begins to rub his shoulders.]
57
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
First, relax. Breathe.
[They stand there, breathing together. And then Jeremy begins to speak, looking at
Sarah. He gets better and better. He’s got it, this time.]
Jeremy
I was afraid,
I turned quickly, tested the burnt-sacrifice,
Ignited the altar at all points—but no fire,
The god in the fire never blazed.
Not from those offerings…over the embers
Slid a heavy ooze from the long thighbones,
Smoking, sputtering out, and the bladder
Puffed and burst—spraying gall into the air—
And the fat wrapping the bones slithered off
And left them glistening white. And no fire.
I had my gun, I took my gun. I jabbed
My gun into that Haji’s head, talk or I’ll
blow your fucking brains out. I kicked that
bastard until he bled. Where’s the Fucking IED?
Sarah
Jeremy.
Jeremy
Where’s the bomb, rag head? Tell me, I’ll let you
Go. I’ll let your sorry ass live. The motherfucker
Grabs at my leg. I take my rifle, hit him hard.
His jaw breaks. Blood spurts out and bone.
Sarah
Jeremy. Stop.
Jeremy
Stop. His wife starts to scream. She starts pulling
At my jacket. Begging. She grabs for my gun.
My gun starts to go off. She’s screaming, stop.
Sarah
Jeremy, please. That’s enough.
Jeremy
Shut the fuck up. It doesn’t stop.
I can’t take my hand off. I don’t know
58
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
59
She’s pregnant. I see pieces of baby fall
Out. He’s down on his knees, begging.
And we’re crying. We are, all of us,
Crying. My gun is on the floor, next
to her. Her hair comes loose from that scarf.
Her black hair spreads out on the floor.
He’s kneeling, stroking her hair.
[Silence. Jeremy is frozen, staring at the spot. Sarah is obviously shaken, but she pulls
herself together and speaks calmly.]
Sarah
Jeremy. Jeremy?
Jeremy
If you tell anyone anything you heard here tonight, I’ll kill you I swear I will.
I’ll blow your brains out.
Sarah
Hush. I won’t tell. Trust. I’m here for you, Jeremy.
[Jeremy falls on his knees to the rug, and he beats his head rhythmically against the
floor, moaning. Sarah gets down next to him on the floor and as he rocks back and forth,
she gently lays a hand on his back. Slowly, he quiets. He stays in a crouching, fetal
position, head against the floor, gasping for breath. She sits next to him, lightly stroking
his back and he quiets. For a long time, there is only the sound of their breathing.]
Alan
(his voice is heard in the hallway)
Go on in. Sarah! I have someone I want you to meet.
[Alan shows a young woman dressed in jeans, sneakers, a long-sleeved form fitting top,
with a hijab into the room. Sarah shakes her head, and waves her other hand in a
gesture that says “go away”.]
Sarah
(in a whisper)
Get out of here, Alan, please. With her.
Alan
Sarah, this is my Mariam. My daughter.
Sarah
Jesus Christ.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
[Jeremy jumps up.]
Sarah
Jeremy, it’s all right. This is my husband, Alan, and this lovely young person is
his daughter, Mariam. Amazing, but true. This is Jeremy Thrasher, my most
gifted acting student. We’ve been here tonight working on quite a difficult
speech from “Antigone”. Jeremy found a whole new truth…(to Jeremy) It takes
great courage to speak like that. Your work was very honest, very brave.
Alan
(puts his hand out; Alan’s and Mariam’s lines are over-lapped, awkward)
Hello, Jeremy. Sarah has spoken very highly…
Mariam
“Antigone” is my favorite play.
[Jeremy stands up, staring all the while at Mariam.]
Jeremy
I’ve got to get out of here.
Sarah
Stay. We’ll have supper. I said, we’d eat.
Jeremy
Can’t. My girlfriend. Got to go.
Sarah
Jeremy, come to class tomorrow.
[Jeremy grabs his stuff. He looks awkwardly at Sarah]
Jeremy
Yeah, okay, sure.
Sarah
(she stands very close to him)
Look at me. Go straight home. Tomorrow, come to me, first thing.
Jeremy
Sure, whatever you say.
[Jeremy smiles weakly. As he walks toward the door, Alan, in a sort of a reflex action,
puts his arm protectively around Mariam, and moves her away from Jeremy.]
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
[Jeremy exits.]
Alan
So, Sarah, I always imagined Lukas to look like that.
[Sarah, is too upset to respond to him, sits on the couch and speaks to Mariam.]
Sarah
You look like your mother. That’s lucky, you know, you might have had Alan’s
looks. You remember what Bernard Shaw said to who was it, Mrs. Somebody
or Other, about looks and brains. She wanted his child. My god, I’ve lost my
mind. I can’t think who it was. Anyway, in your case, the analogy doesn’t hold
up. Hala was brilliant and beautiful. Is, I should say. I do hope she’s all right.
You can see, I suppose, why I was jealous. Here you are, a grown woman in
our living room, standing on our rug, and it all seems amazing. Because, it
doesn’t seem to matter what happened then. None of that matters any more, not
after, well, it doesn’t matter, now, after all. Here you are. I’m extremely
grateful that you are here. In one piece. Look, how lovely, Alan, she is. With
such beautiful hair. Spread out. On the ground.
[Sarah puts her head into her hands, completely undone.]
End of Act I
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
62
Act II
Scene 12
[Charles Muffler sits behind his large desk, talking on the phone. Outside his open office
door, Miranda paces.]
Charles
Yours is truly exceptional foresight, Mrs. Gifford, extraordinary. Jennifer is our
most gifted student. I had no idea she was your niece, none, when she
auditioned for us. Juliet. Who could forget? The balcony speech. I wept. A
bronze plaque. Right in the center between the two doors, as you enter. “In
loving memory…” yes, and something, a few words, a couplet, perhaps, about
your late husband’s love of the bard. This has made my day, Mrs. Gifford, my
year. I can’t thank you enough. By pure coincidence, it happens, our senior
project is to be “Romeo and Juliet”, beating out Moliere and Goldoni. With our
Jennifer, of course. Mark Gant adores her work. The Mark Gant, yes. He will
direct. (he laughs at something she says) You are very kind. And I will call her
in and let her know. I’m certain she’ll phone you directly after. Ciao for now.
[He clicks on a button on his phone and says]
Charles
Lizzie, send the young lady back in.
[Miranda has a black eye and a bandaged cut on her cheek. She’s full of manic energy;
she shifts her weight from foot to foot.]
Miranda
The “young lady” has a name. Miranda Cruz.
Charles
Take a seat, please, Ms Cruz.
Miranda
I did Juliet for my audition, too. I won’t be cast as her, though. My aunt works
at Wal-Mart. I’m going to have a scar. And, I’m going to sue. I will need
plastic surgery. And, if I want to work, I’ll need a theater with my aunt’s name
on a plaque, “Sonia-Lynnette Cruz,” in the center, between the two doors. (she
laughs a bit wildly and plops down on the couch) Where the fuck is she?
[Charles sees Sarah outside the door and waves her in.]
Sarah
Charles thanks for seeing me right away.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Miranda
Damn straight.
[Sarah wheels around and looks at her.]
Sarah
What happened to her?
Miranda
Miranda. Miranda Cruz. She doesn’t even fucking know my name. No one in
this place knows who I am. You will.
Charles
Sit down, Miranda. I’m on your side, believe me. I only ask you to control your
tongue. You’ll get further in life. So, Sarah, what have you to say for yourself?
Sarah
What happened to you, Miranda? Not Jeremy?
Miranda
What do you think?
Charles
I’m afraid so. The worst.
Sarah
Jeremy beat you up?
Miranda
She acts surprised. (under her breath) The bitch.
Charles
Let’s watch our language, please, Ms Cruz, I don’t want to tell you again. The
Thrasher boy has a concussion, from a frying pan, I believe, wielded by our Ms
Cruz.
Sarah
Shit.
Charles
You, also, Sarah, please, your tongue.
[Miranda jumps up]
Miranda
My face is ruined. Destroyed because of this cunt.
Sarah
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
I beg your pardon?
Charles
Sit, Miranda. Not another word. (to Sarah) You were with Jeremy Thrasher
last night. We know that.
Sarah
Jeremy came to my house.
Charles
After I’d strictly forbidden you to see him?
Sarah
Come on, Charles. You took Jeremy out of my class. I told you that was a bad
decision. He needed to finish work on that speech. Believe me, he has his
reasons.
Charles
And what are those reasons, if I might be so bold as to inquire?
Miranda
I know damn well what his reasons were. Ms Thing here is trying to break us
up.
Sarah
Wrong.
Miranda
You slept with my boyfriend.
Sarah
Don’t be ridiculous.
Miranda
Me? You could be his mother, his grandmother. You’re his teacher. Mine, too.
Were.
Sarah
I would never.
Miranda
I saw how you looked at him from the first class. You knew we were together,
that’s why you hated my work.
Sarah
I’m afraid that’s not why…
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Charles
“I did not have sex with that woman,” excuse me for quoting our former
President. These things happen. We’re all human. So, Sarah, tell me.
Sarah
Stop this nonsense.
Charles
I spoke with him by phone from the emergency room.
Miranda
He came home at 4 am, drunk, smelling of sex. We had a fight. What do you
think. He told me he was with you.
Sarah
At my house…
Miranda
The bitch admits.
Charles
Silence, Ms Cruz. Sit.
[Miranda plops down in the couch.]
Sarah
He worked on his speech.
Miranda
I’m suing your ass. I want you out of this school.
Charles
Miranda, you have crossed the decency line too many times.
Sarah
Jeremy left by 9, 9:30 at the latest. I begged him to go straight home. He told me
he would go to his girlfriend’s, you, Miranda. He did. My husband came in
with his daughter. Amazing, but true. I have witnesses. Alan’s daughter.
Charles, I must speak with you alone.
Miranda
Blame the victim. It’s illegal what she’s done.
Charles
Ill-advised. Prohibited at this school.
Sarah
65
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
You can’t believe this…Miranda, I did not do what Jeremy has said, if he even
said it, that is. Jeremy is disturbed. He’s lying to protect himself. I can’t
believe you hit him on the head.
Miranda
The prick had a gun.
Sarah
Fuck.
Charles
Ladies, enough. Jeremy Thrasher is in the hospital. He is also in custody, I’m
afraid.
Sarah
That’s the worst thing for Jeremy.
Miranda
I love him. He tried to kill me.
Sarah
You saw the gun?
Miranda
That’s why I grabbed the pan. I love him.
Charles
No gun was found.
Miranda
He threw the gun out the window; I told the police
Sarah
Charles, we must talk, alone.
Miranda
He was kissing me. Then, he grabbed my hair. (she sits, quite upset) He was
acting so wild. Saying dumb things about the war.
Sarah
I see. Miranda, why not wait outside, for a minute, please.
Miranda
I’ve been sitting outside the whole morning. I’m not rich, but I’ve got an uncle
on the force.
Charles
66
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
I have great respect for the NYPD.
Miranda
New Jersey.
Charles
Miranda, take a seat outside.
Miranda
They talk…
[Miranda glares at them both, through her tears, and goes out. Sarah shuts the door.]
Sarah
Charles, Jeremy Thrasher was in Iraq.
Charles
We know that.
Sarah
I did not know that until last night. When did you find out?
[Charles picks up his snow globe and stares into it.]
Sarah
Charles! You might have told me. After the mirror incident. That’s what they
call them, don’t they, “incidents”, “regrettable incidents”, in fact. We regret the
loss of each civilian life. But, they are all civilians, aren’t they, until they sign
up. Jeremy did it for the tuition money, so he could get out of his god-forsaken
life and come to this school. The Tiresias speech became the mine field he had
to walk through.
Charles
More matter, less art.
Sarah
Right. Jeremy Thrasher killed someone in Iraq.
Charles
Naturally, my dear, it’s a war.
Sarah
He murdered a woman.
Charles
Innocent people get killed. Regrettable, always, of course.
67
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
I see.
Charles
We go on.
Sarah
Is that what “we” do?
Charles
Did you have sex with the Thrasher boy or not?
Sarah
Stop this. Jeremy flashed back during the speech.
Charles
Jeremy Thrasher should not have been at your house.
Sarah
Did he threaten that girl with a gun?
Charles
A little provocateuse, that one.
Sarah
Does Jeremy have a gun?
Charles
He does not.
Sarah
You’re absolutely certain of that?
Charles
The gun story is hers.
Sarah
She made it up?
Charles
Trust me. Thrasher got the thrashing he deserved. Nevertheless, Jeremy
Thrasher is out of this school.
Sarah
Don’t be ridiculous, Charles; you can’t throw him out.
68
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Charles
No? We’re a conservatory, not a mental hospital. I might as well expel that
foul-mouthed little tart, also.
Sarah
This is the wrong approach. The worst idea.
Charles
I believe your class starts at ten.
Sarah
You must not expel Jeremy Thrasher.
[Charles waves his hand to make to her stop. He picks up the snow globe and seems
totally lost in it.]
Sarah
Charles?
Charles
I cannot tell you what comfort it is to get lost in a snowstorm for a bit. It takes
me back to my boyhood on the farm. Mother would send me out first thing in
the morning to gather the eggs. The whole world was new, sparkling with frost.
Icicles tinkling in the wind. The chickens would be hunkered down, feathers
plumped up, a brown egg hidden under each one. They’d flap their wings and
screech, trying to scare me away. It was a loss, of sorts. My fingers were stiff
from the cold but the eggs were warm. I’d have my pockets full. There’d be
snowflakes on my nose.
Sarah
I see.
[Charles “comes back”. He chews his cigar and drums his fingers on the table in that
nervous way of his.]
Sarah
Charles, did you know Lukas Brightman in Vietnam?
Charles
I had many young men in my command.
Sarah
You asked me to forgive you on opening night.
Charles
69
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
70
Enough. This Thrasher fellow was honorably discharged. There’s not a stain on
his record. It’s a pity. What can I do? We’re an acting school. In the long run,
we may be doing him a favor by asking him to go. Adversity builds character,
it’s so.
Sarah
I don’t believe you, Charles.
Charles
(He stands to usher her out.)
No more, now. No more of this. I know a good man at the V.A.; I’ll send him
the boy. Thanks, Sarah, for dropping by. Your class awaits. A great source of
satisfaction, our students. Go, give them your best. Lose your cares, Sarah, in
art.
[Sarah looks hard at him, and then leaves.]
Scene 13
[The hospital: Outside a shut door, Sarah leans against the wall, looking quite undone.]
Sarah
I visited Lukas at Walter Reed. The place was full of young, beautiful bodies
with unlined faces, only they were missing one or two of everything: arms, legs,
private parts, and a few, like Lukas, were missing themselves. They lay about
like detritus on a beach… “Urns with ashes that once were men”.
[Sarah opens the door. The room is empty. There is an empty hospital chair, next to it an
IV pole and bag, next to the chair is a stool.]
He was alone, in his own room. So as not to upset the others, I suppose. He
was tied to a chair. “Lukas?” His glorious hair was all gone, his scalp wrapped.
His head hung like it was barely attached to his neck. But, his eyes were open,
with a far away look. Lukas was breathing through a plastic tube in his nose. I
started to cry. Then, I thought, what if he can still see? I closed my eyes; I saw
Lukas, the beauty he was. I sat down on the stool next to him.
“Hi, Lukas. I’m here.”
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
I took his hand. His flesh was soft, moist. He smelled sweet. He gripped my
fingers like a baby does. He held tight. We sat for a long time like that.
“Lukas, can you hear me? Let me tell you…Please, can you hear? Yesterday,
there was a great protest, Lukas, the best. The vets took their medals and they
threw them over a chain link fence back at Congress, right into the faces of those
smirking, self-righteous bastards. One by one, the vets ripped their medals off
of their chests and heaved them over the fence. It was on television, Lukas, on
Walter Cronkrite. The whole world watched it. Your friend, John, he had your
purple heart. He said into the microphone, ‘this one is from Lukas, who hated
this mother-fucking war, and who is in fucking Walter Reed because he was
going to talk about what he saw.’ and he threw your purple heart back. I asked
John what he meant. ‘What the fuck difference would it make.’ But it does
matter, Lukas, doesn’t it.
“Lukas, what did you see in Vietnam? What were you going to say? Who did
this to you, Lukas? Please, tell me.”
Lukas tightened his grip. He jerked himself straight. I felt him tremble. I heard
him roaring inside like the ocean. A wave rushed through him.
And, then, there was nothing. Lukas slumped in his chair. His fingers fell from
mine. Lukas was gone.
I couldn’t tell him I carried his child. If I had…never mind. Lukas used
himself up trying to speak. Lukas wanted me to know.
[Jeremy comes in the door. A white bandage wound around his head. Sarah jumps.]
Jeremy
Jeeze, Ms. Golden, you’re here.
Sarah
Jeremy, what…
Jeremy
Who else?
[He laughs a little hysterically and starts to unwind the bandage from around his head.
There is a shaved spot, with stitches.]
Jeremy
Wounded. See. Took a hit. Discharged. Ready to go. Said I’d talk to a shrink;
they took the cuffs off. (pause) You know what the shrink said? (he paces,
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
laughs nervously and says in a mocking voice). “Well, young man, you are not
a risk to yourself or to anyone else.” So, that’s that. Fixed me right up. Stitches.
Ex-ray. Had counseling, too. Fine. Inside and out. Good as new.
Sarah
Jeremy, stand still.
Jeremy
Look, I don’t have a gun if that’s what they said.
Sarah
How do you know they told me that?
Jeremy
She starts screaming. I yell back.
Sarah
Be honest with me.
Jeremy
I stopped to have a few drinks. She throws a frying pan. If I’d had a gun, I’d a
blown her head off. I smacked her, instead.
Sarah
Very smart.
Jeremy
Ms Golden, Sarah, look, I can control this stuff, if I can act. I know I can. Trust
me. Please.
Sarah
Jeremy, Muffler has thrown you out of school.
Jeremy
Right. Sure.
[He grabs the I.V. pole, as if to throw it into the wall.]
Jeremy
Fucking dick head. Jerk.
[Jeremy slams the I.V. pole down on the floor and slumps into the empty chair where
Sarah had imagined Lukas sitting.]
Jeremy
It’s over. See. I fucked up.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
It was war, Jeremy.
Jeremy
Sure. That’s what it was.
Sarah
You can tell me. Anything. Anything at all.
Jeremy
Help me. I’ve got no one else.
Sarah
I promise.
Jeremy
Stop looking at me.
Sarah
Trust me, Jeremy. I will help. I know how hard…
[She approaches him to comfort him. He flies into a rage, grabs the I.V. pole, flings
it across the room in the middle of his speech.]
Jeremy
I told you not to talk about that. Never, I said. Shit. Fuck. You know what: just
get out of my life. Stop following me around. Asking me stuff. Pretending you
know. That’s right. Give up and leave us alone. Miranda and me.
[He storms out the door. Sarah, stunned, waits a moment and then leaves.]
Scene 14
[Alan’s office, the same day. Nervous and excited, he speaks into his phone.]
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan
Yes, I’m free. Send her right up!
[Sarah opens his office door, carrying several large shopping bags clearly from an
expensive boutique.]
Alan
(Surprised)
Sarah!
Sarah
(She kisses him)
Surprise, sweetie. Give me a minute. I’ll slip into something smashing,
cashmere, décolletage. You’ll take me some fabulous place. We’ll drink, fuck.
Alan
Sarah, it’s 2 o’clock.
Sarah
I’ll forget.
Alan
My afternoon’s booked.
Sarah
Everything was on sale.
Alan
I’m certain it’s lovely.
Sarah
I can’t take anything back.
Alan
Sarah, truth is…I’ve a meeting.
Sarah
Whenever I get near a hospital, my life falls apart…
Alan
Darling, later, I promise, my head will be clear.
Sarah
I see. What exquisite timing. Isn’t it amazing how life works? All our ghosts.
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Alan
Don’t say that.
Sarah
Alan, help me. I’m afraid.
Alan
(He goes to her and holds her)
Don’t be, darling, I’m here, with you.
[Mariam opens Alan’s door. She clutches a large leather lady’s handbag to her chest
and stands awkwardly.]
Mariam
I’m sorry, I’ll…
[Alan moves quickly away from Sarah.]
Alan
Mariam, please, come in. I’m so happy you’re here.
[He moves to hug her, but she steps away. Everyone stands in awkward silence.]
Sarah
Is your mother in town?
Mariam
My mother?
[Silence]
Mariam
My mother is in Beirut.
Alan
Sit down, everyone, please. Coffee? Tea? I’ve cleared the whole afternoon
just for us.
[He points out three chairs around a low table, and he holds one out for Mariam.
Everyone sits.]
Alan
Here, everyone. Good. Now, how long will you stay in New York?
Mariam
Long enough.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan
Great. I’ll show you the city. We will, won’t we, Sarah? What would you like to
see? Do you like opera, museums, food, we have the best restaurants, shopping,
do you like to shop? Read? Hip-hop? There are mosques. We have quite a few
Arab neighborhoods. There are so many people I’d like you to meet. You’ll stay
for awhile, I hope. You could think of studying here, at Columbia.
Mariam
I won’t stay that long.
Alan
No?
Mariam
(nervously looking at Sarah)
I’m not exactly certain why I’ve come.
Alan
I had hoped to see me.
Mariam
That’s true. I want to know about you.
Alan
You do? Sure. That’s so nice. Well, what’s to know? I’m still executive
director here.
Sarah
Hala had the office right next door.
Alan
Yes. Well, I’m rather overwhelmed at the moment. We’re trying to figure out
how to get some aid into Tyre, then, of course, there’s Gaza. There’s always
Gaza, as we say around here. Not to mention Iraq.
[Sarah’s cell phone rings; she fishes for it.]
Mariam
It’s an overwhelming moment, yes.
Sarah
Of course. I know where it is.
[Sarah gets up to leave.]
Alan
It’s fine, Sarah, stay.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Can’t.
Alan
Tonight, then. Be careful, will you.
[Alan kisses her.]
Sarah
(To Mariam)
I leave Alan to you.
[Sarah exits.]
Alan
Well, then, good. Sarah stopped by out of the blue… I had planned for us to be,
well, here we are, now, just we two. (pause) I will work hard, Mariam, to
become a real father to you.
Mariam
There’s no need. I’m grown.
Alan
Even for a grown-up, a father is…I miss my own father quite a bit. It went so
fast, your growing up. I thought about you every birthday, what you’d be
wearing, where I would take you. I always wanted you to ride the merry-goround in Central Park. I never knew the actual date.
Mariam
June 27.
Alan
Close! I always thought the first of July. Somehow, I think, I was not surprised
to see you as you are now, in the hijab, too. A father knows his daughter,
somehow, even if,
Mariam
I never felt I knew you.
Alan
You look so much like Hala.
Mariam
I have your nose.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan
Sorry, that was a mistake.
Mariam
Don’t be sorry about that.
Alan
Does Hala ever speak about those years? (silence) All right, Mariam, look, I
will tell you. I never intended to leave your mother while she was pregnant. It
was Sarah. By the time I had sorted things and Sarah was, well, resigned, your
mother didn’t want me anymore. How is she? How is Hala?
Mariam
Hala was traveling the road north from Tyre with a convoy of women and
children when the road was hit. The first ambulance, clearly marked, it could be
seen from the sky, was destroyed. Deliberately targeted Hala says.
Alan
We heard. (pause) Hala would be in the thick of it all.
Mariam
Everyone, now, is in the thick of it, I think.
Alan
True. Does she know you’re here? That you’ve come?
Mariam
It was a beautiful summer in Lebanon, Alan. Our house on the Corniche
overlooks the sea. In the morning there were birds, at night music. So many
friends had come home. We were laughing all the time. Hala made me leave, to
go to London, she thought. I never left Heathrow. I got on a plane for New
York.
Alan
I’m very glad.
Mariam
I am glad, too.
Alan
I’m happy about that.
Mariam
Happy?
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan
Thrilled, I’d say, yes.
Mariam
I don’t think you know why I’ve come.
Alan
I had hoped to see me.
Mariam
Yes, to see you at work. I wanted to be here in this building with you and all
these good people, all these innocent civilians, at this particular time, when so
many innocent civilians in my part of the world.... You do good work, all of
you. You send aid to people like me. You send protein bars and bottles of
cooking oil, not olive oil, of course, vegetable oil, but still, we can cook up the
dried chick peas, and rice, if we have clean water, that is. If the water
purification plants have not been bombed, if crude oil has not been dumped in
the sea, killing the fish. Never mind. You send ready meals, if you have to,
dump them on us from the sky. And you send little pieces of paper telling us to
leave our houses before they are bombed. That is very kind. The good people
in the United States, continue to think they are good because of the work you do
here helping refugees. The more refugees your country makes, the more people
like you try to help.
Alan
That is one way of looking at it, I suppose.
Mariam
Do you look at it another way?
Alan
I try. There is always evil in the world, and there is always good.
Mariam
True.
Alan
I do what I can to tip the balance our way.
Mariam
That is admirable, Alan.
Alan
Thank you. Your mother, too, Hala feels the same way. Felt. I’m certain, still
does.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Mariam
Oh, yes. My mother thinks exactly like you. But let me ask you, Alan, one
thing. I have come here just to ask you. Why when you tip the balance, as you
say, why is it always Muslims who must die? Why does the balance never tip
the other way? There is a bomb ticking right now inside my bag. Please answer
soon.
Alan
Don’t talk like that. Not even inside my office. It’s fine to be out-raged, of
course. I am, also, out-raged. But someone might overhear you, even here.
That would put you at risk.
Mariam
I understand.
Alan
Fine, then, okay. We all know what’s going on. What do you think I do day in
and day out? But I want to tell you something else: My father, your
grandfather, he lived in times worse than these, and he never gave up. He wasted
not one instant on revenge. He got people out. Snatched from the Nazis. He
saved lives. Often, of course, it does feel useless. I feel hopeless…but I learned
from him, from what he did, individuals can make a difference to other
individuals that may be all we can do. But we must do that much.
Mariam
That is true.
Alan
My father left a legacy to me. I intend to pass his legacy to you. I have letters to
you, Mariam, a drawer full, returned by your mother, unopened. I wanted to
know you. I tried to imagine what you needed to hear at every time, every age.
You can read them. Tell me if I got anything right.
Mariam
That would be nice.
Alan
I sent money, too.
Mariam
Naturally. Of course.
Alan
I wanted you to have the best. Be the best. Your mother and I spoke about a
new race. It was foolish, romantic talk, of course. But we believed it in those
days, and we still do, Hala, too, I am certain of that, in peace, somehow, in
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
justice, in living together, side by side, that someday clearer heads will prevail.
We believed in you, too, Mariam. We believed that in making you from our
flesh we were going to give something beautiful not just to ourselves but to the
world. I am so sorry I wasn’t there to see you grow up.
Mariam
In Lebanon for the Civil War? In East Jerusalem? Where?
Alan
I am sorry, Mariam. I have a great deal to be sorry for. But, please know, how
thrilled, how blessed I feel, truly, I don’t use that word lightly, that you came to
find me. Amazing at this time in my life to have one more chance.
Mariam
One more chance?
Alan
I might live to know my grandchildren, a wonderful thought. I am a fortunate
man, Mariam, because you’ve come.
Mariam
(She stands, clutching the bag to her chest)
I see. I thought it would be nice if you knew me, if you understood everything
in your last minutes, if your whole life flashed before you, and you got to know
at the very last moment that this child who was supposed to bring in the new
world, only you never got to watch her grow up, unfortunate, that, but there was
always a war on, after all, and how could you leave your important job to go
there, anyway. It was always so unsafe. But, I wanted you to know, now, at
last, about the new world you made with your big dreams, your empty words,
and the murderous actions they cover up, the peace plans, the road maps running
every which way, they have to bulldoze so many houses to get there, and put up
such a big wall, build a fence around Gaza, such a nice prison they built, to keep
the fishermen from being able to fish, and there is no where to run, you get
blown up if you go to the beach, if you leave, you can’t get back in, and, then,
why not send Lebanon back to the stone age, the people, after all, are so
primitive. But none of that matters, now, at all, because most of all I wanted to
see your face at the moment you understand it is your own flesh who is going to
blow you up.
[At this, Alan makes a lunge for her, and he grabs her bag.]
Mariam
I wouldn’t open the clasp.
[He stands frozen, holding the bag away from him, not knowing what to do. Mariam
laughs.]
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
82
Mariam
We are all terrorists, after all.
[She takes the bag away from him.]
Alan
Forget about me. I’m an old man. Don’t ruin your life.
Mariam
Get ready, Alan. I’m going to give you a treat. Parents are always already dead.
They don’t get to hear this:
[Mariam begins to recite the Kaddish.]
Yeetgadal v’yeetkadash sh’mey rabbah
B’almach dee v’rah kheer’utey
V’yanleekh malkhutei, b’chahyeykhohn, uv’ yohmeykhohn
Uv’chahyei d’chohl beyt yisrael
[Alan freezes. Mariam opens the bag and dumps its contents onto the floor: lip sticks,
pens, her passport, a diary, a wallet, keys, the usual stuff, a book. Alan feels like a fool,
but he relaxes. Mariam picks up the book]
Mariam
See Under Love by David Grossman. A great Israeli novelist. A great
Holocaust book. And do you know that David Grossman had a son, Uri. He
was a tank commander in the ground invasion. His father had just signed a
petition with other Jewish intellectuals calling for an end to the fighting. This
war could have ended before Uri Grossman got killed by a Hezbollah rocket.
He was twenty years old. And you think we are the only ones who love to make
martyrs? Do you think we are the only ones who love death? (She trembles)
Like an ocean, like two seas crashing together between the rocks and that is my
blood stream, that churning is always my heart. You cannot imagine the power
with which my heart beats. How does my heart not jump from my chest? How
does my blood not rush out? You wanted something else. I believe you wished
for a son. In your mind I would be a great man. I would have had a bar
mitzvah. I would have done good. I would have figured out how. Like your
father, like you.
Alan
No. Mariam. It was you I wanted. All the time, I wanted you.
[Alan goes to her and he holds her and comforts her.]
Mariam
It’s too hard.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan
I know that, believe me, my dear one, my daughter, my child, I do understand.
Scene 15
[That night. Sarah is in bed. Alan enters the bedroom.]
Sarah
I’m awake.
[He kisses her head.]
Sarah
I can’t sleep.
[She sits up and turns on the light.]
Sarah
Poor kid…
[Alan sits on the bed.]
Alan
She pulled quite a stunt.
Sarah
He was crying when he called. I met him in the park at Strawberry Fields. He
got down on his knees and apologized.
Alan
Well, good for him. Mariam threatened to blow me up. She said she had plastic
explosives in her bag.
Sarah
You didn’t believe her?
Alan
She was quite convincing.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
You believed her.
Alan
For an instant.
Sarah
It’s your guilt.
Alan
Afterwards, I felt like a fool. Worse than a fool. Some kind of criminal. At
least, I didn’t show her how angry I was.
Sarah
He promised me he doesn’t have a gun.
Alan
A gun? Sarah, stay away from that kid.
Sarah
He would never hurt me.
Alan
Don’t be so sure.
Sarah
He never threatened to blow me up.
Alan
He’s not your flesh and blood.
Sarah
Right.
Alan
I looked for them, Sarah, more than once. Hala was good at covering her tracks
but it wasn’t Hala by then I cared about.
Sarah
We went to a stupid movie to clear our heads, stuffed ourselves. We laughed,
Alan, like kids. I won’t let that boy go off on his own. I told him I’d get him
back into school.
Alan
Somehow the pain dulled over the years. Days would go by when I wouldn’t
even feel the ache.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Alan, what have we done?
Alan
Abraham rode twice to Egypt to see Ishmael, Sarah, did you know that? He
could not get off his white horse. Sarah forbade his feet touching the ground,
still, she let him go.
Sarah
I let you.
Alan
He left signs for his son to interpret so the boy knew he was loved.
Sarah
Mariam found you.
Alan
Daughters are impossible, it turns out.
Sarah
You deserved a fright—look at it from her point of view.
Alan
She recited the Kaddish.
Sarah
Really?
Alan
Perfectly, yes.
Sarah
You couldn’t do that. I suppose she can do it, someday, for you.
[He gets up, and puts on Sarah’s blue terry cloth robe, which is too small.]
Alan
It was ghastly, really, I thought. I know, it’s ridiculous. That beautiful, brilliant
girl…to think such a thing.
Sarah
Like Hala, really.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan
Quite.
Sarah
I always liked Hala, actually. I thought of having an affair with her myself.
Alan
No.
Sarah
Yes. It’s a line from a Pinter play. Robert says to his wife: “I always liked Jerry
rather more than I liked you. I should have had an affair with him myself.”
Alan
Something else happened to me when I thought I was about to die.
Sarah
What?
Alan
Lukas.
Sarah
Lukas, of course. I’ve never been unfaithful to you, Alan, not since.
Alan
That’s something, I suppose.
Sarah
It most definitely is. All our friends had open marriages, then.
Alan
Then.
Sarah
Well, that’s how it was.
Alan
Years after the war, a guy in Muffler’s command came to see me. He was
having nightmares. His therapist suggested we talk. He knew Lukas, Sarah.
Sarah
John, was that his name?
Alan
John, yes. I talked to the guy. He was pretty distraught. Paranoid, I thought.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
You didn’t believe him?
Alan
It’s not that I didn’t believe him. I was no longer practicing law.
Sarah
You believed him. John was Lukas’s friend.
Alan
John is a common name. After that, I went to see Muffler.
Sarah
To accuse the bastard.
Alan
Not exactly, Sarah, I needed to hear his side of the story.
Sarah
His side!
Alan
Muffler was a mess. Incoherent. Drunk. Shortly after we spoke, he dropped
out of sight.
Sarah
You’d always been jealous of Lukas. Perhaps, you were grateful to Muffler, in
your heart of hearts.
Alan
Nonsense. He cancelled the play you were in.
Sarah
“Uncle Vanya”. I was the Yelena.
Alan
Right. You were pretty upset.
Sarah
I loved the part.
Alan
I felt I had undermined your career for no reason. It would have been
impossible to prove, and what would have been accomplished after all? Muffler
had disappeared.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
88
Sarah
But, today when you thought you were going to lose your life in a terrorist
attack carried out by your own flesh and blood, this scene in your office with
John flashed through your head and you decided that you don’t want to go your
final destination, however hot that may be, Alan, without making a clean breast,
so you decided to tell me tonight that I owe my career to the decorated warcriminal who shot Lukas in the head.
Alan
We don’t know that.
Sarah
I ought to have known, Alan, all along. But, I didn’t want to know, did I? I
wanted to act.
[Sarah looks at him and leaves the room.]
Scene 16
[Split Scene: Later that night. Sarah’s New York apartment; she paces. Her living room
is dark. Morning in Beirut and Hala’s living room is drenched in Mediterranean light.
Hala, dressed for work in pants and shirt, her back is to us, is reading a report. Her hair
is streaked with gray and held in a bun, otherwise, she’s slim, attractive, fit, and in her
forties. Sarah switches on a small lamp. The scene has a strange sort of physical
intimacy; though the women cannot see one another their movements indicate a reaching
out, and a synchronicity of feeling. Hala has a headset phone. Sarah dials a mobile
phone. Perhaps, in this scene, their voices are slightly amplified.]
Sarah
Hala?
Hala
Hala, yes.
Sarah
It’s Sarah.
Hala
Sarah?
Sarah
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Alan’s…you know…
Hala
Ah, Sarah! Hello.
[They laugh a bit nervously; then, they begin to speak at the same time.]
Sarah: How are you?
Hala: How are you?
Sarah: You’re well?
Hala: As usual. And you?
Sarah: I’m fine.
Hala: You are?
Sarah: I am, yes.
Hala: I’m glad.
Sarah
I’m glad you’re all right. Mariam gave me your number.
Hala: I sent her out of here to England. I had no idea.
Sarah: She’s a wonderful young woman. Amazing, really.
Hala
I’m glad you think so.
Sarah
I do. She’s ballsy, if you know what I mean.
Hala
(laughs) I do. (pause) I don’t want to speak to Alan.
Sarah
Alan’s asleep.
[Pause. Hala and Sarah each begin to pace.]
Sarah
Hala?
Hala
Yes, Sarah, what?
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Something has happened. Not to Mariam; she’s fine. Really. Lovely.
Hala
Has she taken off the head scarf in New York? Tell me, yes. She started that at
boarding school in England, not in Beirut. Here she was disco-dancing. Here,
before, I worried about sex, drinking, usual things. Now, who knows what to
fear. The young are putting on the scarves. If my mother were alive, she’d…
Sarah
Something’s happened, Hala, to someone else. To me, too, I think. I couldn’t
sleep. I haven’t been. Sleeping, that is.
Hala
I know.
Sarah
You do?
Hala
I don’t sleep.
Sarah
Oh, my god, of course not. I’m…what can I say?
Hala
The bombing has stopped. The truce might hold.
Sarah
I hope so.
Hala
We are relieved.
[Pause. Sarah stares in Hala’s direction.]
Sarah
Hala, I have something in my head. A woman. I had to tell someone. You. I
thought: Hala, I could tell. You’ve been to Iraq.
Hala
I was there, yes. At the start. Afterwards, there was no room for the UN.
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Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
91
Sarah
How can such things happen? This war, I mean, we let it, not you, we, here,
and, now, well. (Hala puts her head into her hands. Sarah paces) I teach, you
remember, do you? A talented young man in my class. She was pregnant, Hala.
I don’t know what I’m asking. He can’t forget. That’s good, I think, he
shouldn’t. But now? I mean, I know. I see. It’s an indelible image, really.
(pause) I don’t know. What do you do?
Hala
Do?
Sarah
With such things? With the things you’ve heard, things you have seen, I mean.
How do you?
Hala
Go on?
Sarah
I suppose. I don’t know. You go on. Obviously, you do. But it’s in my mind.
Like a scene in a play. I didn’t see it, first hand, like you, like I suppose you
have seen, and worse things, still, I can’t forget. I cannot stop looking.
Sometimes I feel I am her.
Hala
I see.
Sarah
You do? Because I’m afraid I’m completely unhinged.
Hala
There’s a concept the therapists have, secondary traumatization, it happens from
the things you hear, things that the people tell you. They tell you, and you see it
all in front of you. You take their story into your body. It happens to everyone,
everyone who listens, that is. Is this what you wanted to hear?
Sarah
What do you do?
Hala
Do?
Sarah
Yes, Hala, please.
[Hala gets up and as she does Sarah sits down and gently rocks herself back and forth]
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Hala
You weep with them. You hold them, if you can. If they let you. If they are not
so stiff they can’t be touched. You try to hold them, until, you hold them until
they can start to shake. You want to know this?
Sarah
I know it, yes…
Hala
Sometimes they bury their heads in your lap, even if they are men, sometimes,
often, if a wife has been killed. They cry. Or if their children. Grown men.
They tremble in your arms. They were not home when the house was bombed.
They come home. Everyone they love is gone. They dig. They find, maybe, a
hand. I can’t tell you, Sarah. I will not do it, not over the phone, not in your
West Side apartment with all those white walls.
Sarah:
But I know, I mean, I read, I watch the news, we do see, but, please, it is this
boy I have, he was a soldier.
Hala
A soldier.
Sarah
A boy, innocent, really, then all of a sudden...he shot a pregnant woman, Hala,
many times. (Silence.) Hala?
Hala
I will tell you about the survivors, the ones who remain alive, after soldiers like
yours. Let me tell you about their eyes. Their eyes have a look you do not see
in anyone else. They are looking, trying to look, from very far away. They
cannot believe themselves what they tell you that they’ve seen. They do not
anymore know how to believe. (Silence. Both women are very still. Sarah
walks toward Hala, then stops, very still.) Sometimes, I think we are held here
by threads, each one of us, by threads slim as the web of a spider, to the people
we love, to our children. How easy it is for someone to walk through our web
without seeing, to wipe it away with one move of the hand, without ever
knowing what they’ve done. If you cut a person’s threads, they go spinning, all
by themselves. They are whirled out to the other side of a divide, to a place
where there is no one they can touch; there is nothing to hold them. They are a
long distance from us. (pause) Here, in my part of the world, family is so
important. Now they have no one. “I am no more a man.” “I am no more a
woman.” They do not, anymore, know how to be. This frightens me. It
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should frighten us all. They look at us with dead eyes from very far. (Long
pause in which both woman turn away) Sarah, I am sorry that I took your
husband. That from him I had my child, my Mariam, with her headscarf, and
her rage. I didn’t want this life. I wanted, yes, of course, my child, I wanted
her, and Alan, I wanted him. I did. We wanted, he and I... We forgot the
moment, the present in which we lived. I forgot the thread connecting me to
you. We had no idea, then, what would come. We wanted to weave…I wanted
strings, Sarah, threads. (Hala turns toward Sara who turns around to face her) I
am glad you called, Sarah, I have wanted to tell you this.
[It is almost as if they can touch.]
Sarah
Thank you, Hala.
Hala
Thank me?
Sarah
Yes.
Hala
I am to be thanked?
Sarah
Not for taking Alan, not for that. For making Mariam, for making threads to
keep you, to keep us, you and me, attached. For telling me what you have.
Somehow, it helps. It does.
Hala
Good morning, then, Sarah, it must be very early.
Sarah
It is. Good afternoon, Hala. Take care.
[They each listen, for a moment, to the other’s breathing in the phone, unable to hang
up.]
Hala
Your country has caused a great shame with this war.
Sarah
I believe that, too, Hala. I don’t know what to do.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Hala
Shame drives people mad. (pause) Good luck, Sarah.
[Slowly, they put their phones down. Sarah goes toward the bedroom, looking at her
watch.]
Scene 17
[Sarah & Alan’s living room, the following evening. Jeremy grabs a chair and sits,
clutching its bottom.]
Sarah
You know what, Jeremy, get up.
[He stands. Sarah takes the chair away.]
Sarah
For the audition with Muffler tomorrow let’s cut the chair.
Jeremy
“I sat,” he says. He’s sitting down.
Sarah
No. he appears; he comes, led by a small boy, to confront Kreon. Jeremy, have
you read the whole play?
[Jeremy hangs his head.]
Sarah
Wonderful. How can you act, if…never mind. Read the play, Jeremy. It’s
good for you.
Jeremy
He’s sitting there talking to the general.
Sarah
No, he’s on his feet in front of King Kreon, yes, general, too.
Jeremy
The commander-in-chief.
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95
Sarah
Close enough. This is the big moment, the turning point. The highest spiritual
authority confronts the temporal…it’s like the Pope coming from Rome to say
“stop the war”.
Jeremy
The Pope would sit down.
Well, you’re going to stand.
just needs to see…
Sarah
Look, I had quite a talk with Muffler today. He
Jeremy
If he thinks I’m good.
Sarah
You are good.
Jeremy
At least, you think so.
Sarah
Well, that’s what you’ve got to go on so far. My word. Plus what you feel,
inside. Are you good enough Jeremy?
Jeremy
Good enough?
Sarah
As an actor, I mean.
Jeremy
Are they two separate things?
Sarah
Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, usually, in fact, I would say all the time, we are
better in our art than we are in our lives. After all, we get to rehearse. So, let’s
begin.
[Jeremy stands in the center. Sarah takes the chair and moves it to the other side of the
room. She sits down on its edge, alert. ]
Jeremy
Okay, here goes. (pause) You’ll catch me?
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
96
Sarah
I most certainly will.
[Jeremy tosses his head so that his hair falls down around his eyes.]
Jeremy
As I sat on the ancient seat of augury…(he stops) See! “Sat.”
Sarah
“As”, Jeremy. As in “when I sat.”
[The door bell rings.]
Mariam
Sarah, hello.
[There’s an awkward moment, then Sarah hugs Mariam. Mariam is wearing a headscarf,
jeans and a form-fitting long-sleeved shirt. Jeremy stares at them.]
Sarah
Come in. (to Jeremy) You’ve met Alan’s daughter, Mariam. (to Mariam) He’s
held up. Crisis at work. No time to talk. And we’re just in the middle…
Jeremy
Salaam, Mariam.
Mariam
Salaam.
Sarah
We’re rehearsing, Mariam.
Mariam
I’m sorry. I’ll go.
Jeremy
Stay. It’s good. An audience, you know…
Sarah
Fine, then, sit. You can start at the top, if you like, or anywhere.
[Sarah & Mariam sit.. Jeremy stands smiling at Mariam.]
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
97
Jeremy
Hey, the Arabic worked.
Sarah
(a bit annoyed)
Whenever you’re ready. I’m here.
[Split Scene: Charles Muffler appears in his desk chair, opposite. He’s leaning back,
holding his snow globe and staring into it. Sarah takes a few steps toward Charles, as if
she’s just entered his office. She is between Jeremy and Charles.]
Jeremy
They were killing each other—that much I knew.
The murderous fury whirring in those wings
Made that much clear!
I was afraid,
[Freeze: Jeremy is completely committed to the speech and Mariam is paying complete
attention. Action: Sarah takes the chair and puts it down, facing Muffler. They are in the
midst of a confrontation they had earlier that day.]
Charles
You’re correct in one thing Sarah, one. Lukas Brightman was on that patrol. He
volunteered. It’s a village, he said, those were his words. It’s a village full of
women and children, old men. There are no Vietcong. Well, they shot him
point blank in the head. His brains blown away by someone’s little, old
grandmother in black pajamas.
Jeremy
(becomes strong and angry, speaking directly toward Muffler, who, of course, he doesn’t
see)
And it is you—
Your high resolve that sets this plague on Thebes.
The public altars and sacred hearths are fouled,
And so the gods are deaf to our prayers, they spurn
The offerings in our hands, the flame of holy flesh.
Charles
Stop! Why should I be made to watch? I see the whole thing in my head. I
give the order to open up. I use overwhelming force, yes. I use everything I
have. Lukas is the only soldier I lose on that patrol.
Sarah
Lukas was going to blow the whistle on you.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
98
Charles
Enough. I know about that man who rants about massacres. Poor devil, he’s not
in his right mind. He came after me, stalking. Proof of what? He made a grab
for me right on the street, creaming obscenities, threatening. A passerby called
911. I was supervising the men putting up the signs for our “Uncle Vanya”. I
blame Alan. Putting absurd ideas into a crazy vet’s head. I was afraid for my
life. A murderer, believe me, I’m not.
Sarah
Right, Charles, have it your way. But if you don’t let Jeremy back into school, I will
not be able to stay.
Charles
Don’t push me, my dear.
[Sarah stands and she turns back to Jeremy, and she hears him, now, as the speech
continues to build. He is still speaking as if directly toward Muffler who drums his
fingers during the speech, then puts his head into his hands, visibly shaken.]
Jeremy
Take these things to heart, my son, I warn you.
All men make mistakes, it is only human.
But once the wrong is done, a man
Can turn his back on folly, misfortune, too,
If he tries to make amends, however low he’s fallen,
And stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornness
Brands you for stupidity—pride is a crime.
[Sarah turns back to Jeremy. Muffler is visibly shaken. Mariam begins to applaud.]
Sarah
Well done, Jeremy. It gets better and better.
Mariam
You are very, very good. You will put some truth into the world.
Jeremy
(to Mariam)
Ma’am, I’m not good.
Sarah
It was, Jeremy, really.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
99
Jeremy
(He hits his heart)
What do you think I see when I talk?
Sarah
You got through it. You used it. The speech will hold you. The words become your
container. You can pour your heart in.
Jeremy
I never don’t see it; that’s the thing. But he says you can get up, no matter how
low.
Sarah
Sophocles was a general; his actors had all been soldiers. You’re not alone.
Stay, both of you. I’ll cook.
Mariam
No, it’s fine.
Jeremy
Me, too, got to go, read the play, you know. I’ll walk you to the subway.
Sarah
Jeremy, call me, if you need anything. Call me, anytime, tonight, tomorrow
morning before the audition. Call me the minute you hear.
[Mariam& Jeremy leave. Sarah re-enters the earlier confrontation scene with Muffler.]
Sarah
I don’t push, Charles. I’m telling you. I will be forced to resign, quite publicly, in
fact. I know what happened to Lukas in Vietnam.
Charles
You think I never think about that night? You bet. There’s Lukas and all the
rest of it, too. Over and over it plays. A film in my head. Machine guns.
Grenades. Blood curdling yells. Wings beat the sky; shatter the rays of the sun.
Birds squawk, trying to fly. Flesh drops to the ground. Feathers flying like
snow. A boy falls out the door. Two eggs in his hands. Yolk breaks on black
dirt. Eyes roll in his head. A white feather lands on his nose.
So, I am aware, yes. I see. I ask myself: Did I let Lukas volunteer to go first
because I hated the little commie bastard? If true, I’m not saying it is, if
unconsciously, that’s what I felt, well, that was a good decision, wasn’t it?
Lukas was turning my men against my command. He was a fifth column. You
don’t take prisoners in a jungle. We needed bodies.
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah
Charles, for your own sake, as well, Jeremy Thrasher should come back to school.
Come, Charles, we are members of one another. Lukas, me, you, Jeremy, too…
Charles
I have done you some good, Sarah, have I not?
Sarah
True. Now, you can help Jeremy, too. You will help him—for all of our sakes.
[He stands to usher her out.]
Charles
Enough, now. We’ve spoken our minds. I’ll take a good, hard look at the boy.
[Sarah leaves. Jeremy re-enters. He finishes his audition speech:]
Jeremy
Stubbornness
Brands you for stupidity—pride is a crime.
No, yield to the dead!
Never stab the fighter when he’s down,
Where’s the glory, killing the dead twice over?
I mean you well. I give you sound advice.
It’s best to learn from a good advisor
When he speaks for your own good.
Charles
Well, well. (pause) That’s... (clears his throat) Thank you very much, young
man.
Jeremy
Sure. I mean, thank you for the opportunity, sir.
Charles
That’s enough, then.
Jeremy
I could do it again. If you have…I could try…anything, you want. Do you want
anything else?
Charles
No need to do it again.
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101
Jeremy
It was okay? It felt good, I mean.
Charles
Yes, yes. We’ll give you a call, Jeremy. (He looks at his watch, in a hurry to
end this) I’ve got…something else. Young man, you may go, now. You’re
dismissed.
Jeremy
Yes, Sir.
[Jeremy makes as if to salute. It’s a moment for both of them, then they each remember
where they are. Jeremy offers his hand to shake. Muffler does not take it. Awkward
pause. Jeremy, defeated, exits. Muffler stares, terrified, into space as if in the middle of
his recurring flash-back—he sees it all again, the little boy falling out the door, and
Lukas, being shot, blood bursting out of his head.]
Scene 18
[Split scene: That evening, after Jeremy’s audition. As Jeremy & Mariam sit at a
Japanese restaurant, Alan enters his living room and starts to massage Sarah’s back.
Mariam wears the hijab, a sweater, jeans. The two dialogues intertwine and sometimes
overlap.]
Sarah: Alan, how wonderful.
Alan: My heart feels light for the first time in years.
(pause)
Jeremy: I’m glad you like Japanese food.
Mariam: I do.
Jeremy: You eat the raw stuff. I can’t do that. I like this steak teriyaki.
I’m a red meat sort of guy. (He laughs, nervously)
Mariam: I suppose you are.
Sarah: Amazing, really. The absence of hurt.
Alan: I’ve passed through something with Mariam
Jeremy: How did you learn to eat with chop sticks?
Mariam: Maybe in London, maybe Beirut, probably not East Jerusalem.
Jeremy: Wow. You’ve seen plays in London?
Malpede/ 2009 Prophecy /
Sarah: There’s a dreadful staying power to grief. Suddenly, we’ve loosened
its grip.
Alan: I wish she’d stay here, go to school.
Sarah: Jeremy’s good. I hope Muffler saw it that way. Jeremy’s raw. Muffler
likes crusted over, as he says, “in control.”
Alan: Muffler liked you.
Sarah: I’ll blow the bastard’s cover if he doesn’t let Jeremy back into school.
Mariam: You were quite wonderful the other night.
Jeremy: Thanks.
Alan: She learned Hebrew, this Lebanese-Palestinian girl with a headscarf
when she found out who her father was.
Jeremy: I think you’re pretty wonderful, too.
Sarah: Proof that she has a good mother.
Mariam: I began to applaud. That’s what you liked.
Jeremy: It sure sounded great. I thought just wait till that sound of two hands
clapping is multiplied by a thousand, you know, like on Broadway.
Allan: I thought Hala would refuse. Instead, she said,
If you wish to find him, go ahead.
Sarah: I think Hala might have been pleased.
Jeremy: It’s hard being an actor you know. It’s harder than (he stops) It’s the
hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s terrifying.
Sarah: I told him I’d quit.
Alan: You should audition, again. Act.
Mariam: When you want something very much, it’s always difficult. There is
so very much to lose.
Sarah: Right.
Jeremy: After the speech, my audition, I mean, the dean, he didn’t applaud.
Mariam: I don’t think the dean would.
Sarah: I stopped by his office; he’d left. He didn’t return my call.
Alan: Relax. He’s pulling rank
Sarah: But why hasn’t Jeremy phoned?
Alan: Jeremy has a date, with Mariam, in fact.
Sarah: I see.
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Mariam: I only came to meet my father. To confront him, I thought…: finally,
to get it all off my chest. And then I find out that I like him, despite myself. That
he listens and understands, that, in many ways, we think the same.
Jeremy: My old man…forget it, you don’t want to know...
Sarah: Hala is an extraordinary woman.
Alan: I thought so. I still do.
Sarah: It must have been hard very hard…
Alan: I also think so about you.
Sarah: You forgave.
Jeremy: I wanted us to celebrate tonight, wanted to, except the dean, he hasn’t
called.
Mariam: He will.
Jeremy: I don’t know…it was like he didn’t like… (He imitates Muffler’s
pompous voice) “Thank you very much, young man,” (Mariam laughs) I swear
to you, that’s how he talks.
Alan: We must, in order to live. Forgive. Ourselves, too. That’s the one thing
we must do.
Jeremy: Look, I’m a Catholic. I haven’t been to Confession for years. I feel
like, I don’t know. There are things no one forgives.
Mariam: God does.
Jeremy: Maybe, but you’re talking to priests.
[They sit in silence; Jeremy reaches for her hand and they toy tentatively with
one another’s fingers.]
Sarah: Alan, come to bed.
[Alan & Sarah exit to their bedroom.]
Jeremy
I thought only married women wore that scarf. I mean I like it, it’s pretty, it
looks nice on you and all that, but I would like to see your hair. I bet you have
beautiful hair.
Mariam
That’s why I wear the scarf. So I don’t have to talk about my hair.
Malpede/PT2009 Prophecy / 104
Jeremy
I could talk about your hair for a long time. I could say all sorts of all sorts of
wonderful things. I could talk about it a lot longer if I could see it. If I could
wind a curl around my finger…
Mariam
(she pulls back)
I’m certain you could.
Jeremy
Hey, don’t get upset. You are a beautiful woman. I’m a guy. It’s only natural,
that’s all. We can talk about something else. (pause) We can talk about
London.
Mariam
London, fine.
Jeremy
Look. Can I tell you something? Can I just talk? There’s something about you,
not just that you’re pretty, beautiful, like I said. There’s something in your eyes,
some deep thing, a sadness, that’s what I see. You remind me of…you look so
much like this woman I saw in Iraq. Someone I didn’t even know, but she was
beautiful, like you. Met. Ran into, I guess. Someone who, well, she had black
hair. Her scarf came loose and her hair spilled out all over the floor. How
beautiful, that’s what I thought, how beautiful.
Mariam
Please, don’t say anymore.
Jeremy
They tell us everyone is armed and dangerous. They tell us all the women have
bombs under those robes; they just look pregnant. That they’ll blow themselves
up just to kill us. They tell us not to trust.
Mariam
I can’t listen to this.
Jeremy
Please, forgive me. Just forgive me, please.
Mariam
I must go. Excuse me.
Jeremy
Please, I’m so sorry, really I am. I’m so sorry, goddamn it. I’m telling you.
You’re beautiful. You’re smart. You’re gorgeous. I think. I thought. The
Malpede/PT2009 Prophecy / 105
minute I saw you, I thought you were perfect. Then you applauded. You
clapped for me, for something I’d done. It was the most amazing feeling. I
think I fell in love with you then.
Mariam
Stop. You come on to me because I wear a head scarf. You know nothing of my
life. Then, you use the word “love”.
Jeremy
I’m sorry. I’m telling you that. You can’t go. Not like this.
[Jeremy roughly grabs her arm; they struggle.]
You’ve got to. Damn it. Let me. (Jeremy pulls off her hijab.) You’re beautiful.
[He runs his hands through her hair. She frees herself from him; stands her ground.]
Mariam
I won’t listen. I don’t want to know. Go to your priest if you need forgiveness.
Go ask your government for help.
[Mariam pulls the hijab out of his hands.]
Mariam
Why is it an Arab who must forgive?
[Mariam exits. Jeremy becomes completely undone.]
Jeremy
Forgive, please, fore, but bode, that has the feeling, foul, yes, deaf, splatter and burst, cut
off, gorged on the flesh, with such beautiful hair, cracked jaw bones glistened, please, no,
stop, no, not listening, glutted with blood, not good, not good enough.
[He runs out.]
Scene 19
[Early morning. Sarah, wearing a sexy silk night gown, comes out of the bedroom. She is
still halfway inside a dream.]
Malpede/PT2009 Prophecy / 106
Sarah
Before he shipped out we went away for a weekend. The last weekend, really,
of Lukas’s normal life. A history professor lent us his cabin on the beach on the
North Shore of Long Island. The idea was Lukas and I would spend the
weekend writing one paragraph we could duplicate many times on strips of
paper telling why the war was wrong and how the enlisted men could organize
on the ground to stop it. Lukas could hide them inside cigarette packages, hand
them out, palm them to guys, Oh, how we argued, cut and pasted, reworked and
reworded to get it all into one paragraph. Basically, we just wanted to tell them
to say “no”, just to say no and to stop. I think he was a little bit excited,
intoxicated, somewhat; Columbia had felt like a betrayal to him. His people
were car mechanics, waitresses. We fell asleep on the floor in front of the fire.
Early the last morning we got up and decided to walk along the shore. It was
late summer, the early morning was cool and the sun was just coming up from
under the sea. One of us began to sing:
[Sarah begins to sing]
Morning has broken like the first morning
Like the first morning
But we didn’t know the rest of the words. So we began to make things up:
[Lukas’s voice is heard]
…praises to be.
[Lukas walks forward, he’s a young, long-haired boy dressed in jungle fatigues in the
style of the sixties.]
The mist is rising, like the first morning,
Like the first morning, praises to be.
[Sarah stops singing, and Lukas’s voice grows stronger]
All hearts are open, like the first morning.
All hearts are open, praises to be.
[They sing together, almost holding hand, but not touchings. They are gentle, tender with
one another, aware this may be the last time. Their sadness is also palpable.]
Praise to ocean, praise to the tides.
Praise to the new sun, red in the sky.
Malpede/PT2009 Prophecy / 107
Sarah
Our feet were wet and caked with sand. I had gone off the pill while Lukas was
in basic training but I hadn’t told him and he didn’t know.
Lukas
Morning has broken, like the first morning.
Like the first morning, praises to be.
Sarah
When we got up from the little beach, I was pregnant. I felt the collision, the
blasting apart of what was. I felt like Lukas felt, intoxicated, everything up in
the air, my life at risk, suddenly, too. Lukas could have had no idea, but he was
smiling at me like he knew.
Lukas
Black bird has spoken, like the first bird.
[Lukas almost caresses her face, smiling at her. He drops Sarah’s hand and he walks off.
The phone rings; Sarah startles.]
Sarah
And now, after all these years, Jeremy Thrasher walks into my life, asking me if
he’s good enough. I would so like to hand a new morning to him.
Alan
Sarah, my love.
[She turns. He looks at her, unable to speak, and she begins to intuit something wrong.]
Sarah
No. Don’t, Alan.
Alan
I am so sorry, my darling. That was the police on the phone. Jeremy Thrasher
shot himself this morning…A note pinned to his shirt: “I am not good enogh.
Forgive.”
[Alan holds Sarah while she cries, and she writhes in arms, struggling to break away.
Her face an agony. She is like a mother animal whose cub has been taken.]
Sarah
No. No. No.
Alan
My darling, my dearest, hush, now. I’m here.
Malpede/PT2009 Prophecy / 108
[Sara stops struggling, and becomes calm.]
[Miranda enters, immediately, as if at a classroom memorial for Jeremy; she says her
name and then she speaks the final chorus simply and feelingly.]
Miranda
Miranda Cruz.
Numberless are the world’s wonders, but none
More wonderful than man.
We have all done this thing. Not one
Young man with a gun
or a bomb strapped to a chest.
These things are in the hands of men.
So, let the weeping start. Let
Mourning come, dawn will break.
The Divine inside
Hallow this ground
END